My First Art Quilt

I wanted to post pictures of two things I made a few years ago, but I can't find one of them. I know it's in my computer somewhere, because I've seen it, but darned if I can find it tonight.

It was a few years ago that I discovered the world of art quilts and was in Barnes and Nobles one day at lunch, looking through the magazine racks. Well, my eyes fell upon an issue of Quilting Arts Magazine and I about flipped. I'd never even heard of the magazine before but snatched up a copy that had a beautiful art quilt on the front of it. The article was about how to paint faces on fabric. I bought myself a copy and took it home and almost immediately started figuring out how I could adapt the picture to make it for my younger daughter, Laura, who has always loved fairies.

While the inspiration quilt is of an actual person, I changed it to be a fairy sitting in the woods. I found a batik fabric that looked like light was flickering through tree branches and knew it was perfect for what I wanted.

I bought some fibers at Michael's and sewed them on top of the rock to make it look mossy. I hand stitched some cotton swab pieces for the pussy willows and hand painted the foxgloves after cutting the shapes out of a soft pink fabric. I added some beads here and there and attempted to free motion quilt with metallic thread randomly. I learned a lot when I made this and want to make more but just haven't. I seem to like to make one thing and then move on.

Her face doesn't show up in the picture but I wanted it to be more of an idea of a face, not really detailed. I was pretty happy with this when I finished it.

I'll keep looking for the other picture that I can't find right now. It's an entirely different kind of fabric art.