Friday, March 29, 2013

No Wonder He Cut Off His Ear!



The Ithaca Modern Quilt Guild that I'm a member of is having a group project in which guild members create a block to be a part of a group quilt inspired by Van Gogh's The Starry Night painting. At a meeting a couple of months ago, a poster of the painting was cut up into 24 squares and we were asked to take a square and then make a larger (9-inch finished) quilt fabric square depicting that part of the painting that we took.

After Plan A and Plan B and Plan C didn't work for me (maybe even Plan D), I finally created what you see on the left in the top photo. It's hard to really tell what I did, so I'll just explain the process.

First, I scanned the small square into my computer and then printed it on some photo fabric sheets (I had to use two sheets and sew the pieces together since the finished block is larger than a regular-sized sheet). Then I arranged rayon thread (in various shades of blue and yellow) and gold metallic thread on top of the printed fabric. Then I fused some white tulle on top of the thread, and then did a little bit of thread painting using blue and gold thread on top of the tulle.

I tried to take some closeup shots, but my camera had difficulty focusing (probably because of the tulle) ...





Looks like a real mess, doesn't it? It's really nicer in person, and although it's not a masterpiece, I'm OK with it.

I hope to show photos of the rest of the blocks after the April meeting of the Ithaca Modern Quilt Guild. I'm sure the whole quilt will look wonderful!

5 comments:

Bouts Choisis said...

Wow! That's a really good interpretation of the original! What a clever way of doing it. If that's Plan E - it works! Is Van Gogh "modern" - I do hope so - that would make me feel very young!

Nancy said...

You came up with a clever solution to your task, though not without angst and false starts! Look forward to seeing this incorporated in the whole project. Well done.

Mary-Frances said...

I can't wait to see all the blocks together. What a creative project. Thanks for taking us through your process, I think you did a fab job. Your block looks great!

Pat Merkle said...

Very cool. This quilt is going to turn our way better than I first thought. Everyone is doing such a great job!

Jean said...

I had to look back and see if you posted a pic of what section you did. I love it! Great job!