While at Road to California in January, I was intrigued with the idea of entering this year's challenge - inspired by Van Gogh. But I don't think I actually purchased the fabric bundle until QuiltCon in February. I lacked the confidence and was worried about lack of time as well. In the end, the colors won me over. Who could resist the lovely blues??
In true "Jen form", I waited until nearly the last minute to start my challenge piece. I chose Van Gogh's "Starry Night over the Rhone" as my inspiration and got to work. Here are some progression pics of the process I used. I basically used the same technique as My Monet quilt, you can find the tutorial HERE, but I'm sure you will get the gist from the pics below.
My rough plan:
I like to draw out a rough plan, like a road map to see where I am going.
I started blocking in the background colors. I even kept some of the "fringe" edges where the fabric had been ripped. I figured that rough edge would help me with a blended look along the horizon.
Finally, I started laying down the first "brushstrokes". These were pieces of fabric fused with Steam a Seam Lite and then cut into random wavy strips.
I just kept adding more and more layers of these little pieces.
More and more layers of detail. As you can see, I started with larger pieces and moved on to smaller pieces to add details.
Once everything was where I wanted it, I fused the pieces in place with my iron and started quilting in long wavy lines.
Normally, I would have added tulle to the entire quilt before quilting on top of those tiny fused pieces, but I wasn't sure if tulle was allowed in the challenge and I really didn't have time to find out. Boy, does tulle make things easier!!! It keeps all your pieces in place and lets the quilting foot just glide over everything. Without the tulle, some of my fused pieces wanted to flip over and get caught.
In fact, I started free motion quilting this project, but after a few minutes of my pieces getting mangled by the foot, I switched up to my walking foot. I ended up quilting nearly the entire quilt with my walking foot.
When I first started quilting, I was a little mad at myself for "ruining a perfectly good quilt with too much stitching", but as I added more and more layers and colors of thread, I felt that was in keeping with what I was trying to accomplish as Van Gogh inspired. I love how it turned out in the end.
What do you think?
I found out today that my quilt was juried into the finalist group. But I have to send it off to be judged and only then will I know if my quilt was accepted into the traveling exhibition. I'll find out sometime next month. I really have my fingers crossed. I just think it would be so neat to have a quilt traveling around for a year to a bunch of shows! I may not sleep until I know if it was accepted.
Thanks for reading today! I hope you found it interesting.
Jen
My rough plan:
I like to draw out a rough plan, like a road map to see where I am going.
I started blocking in the background colors. I even kept some of the "fringe" edges where the fabric had been ripped. I figured that rough edge would help me with a blended look along the horizon.
Finally, I started laying down the first "brushstrokes". These were pieces of fabric fused with Steam a Seam Lite and then cut into random wavy strips.
I just kept adding more and more layers of these little pieces.
More and more layers of detail. As you can see, I started with larger pieces and moved on to smaller pieces to add details.
Once everything was where I wanted it, I fused the pieces in place with my iron and started quilting in long wavy lines.
Normally, I would have added tulle to the entire quilt before quilting on top of those tiny fused pieces, but I wasn't sure if tulle was allowed in the challenge and I really didn't have time to find out. Boy, does tulle make things easier!!! It keeps all your pieces in place and lets the quilting foot just glide over everything. Without the tulle, some of my fused pieces wanted to flip over and get caught.
In fact, I started free motion quilting this project, but after a few minutes of my pieces getting mangled by the foot, I switched up to my walking foot. I ended up quilting nearly the entire quilt with my walking foot.
When I first started quilting, I was a little mad at myself for "ruining a perfectly good quilt with too much stitching", but as I added more and more layers and colors of thread, I felt that was in keeping with what I was trying to accomplish as Van Gogh inspired. I love how it turned out in the end.
What do you think?
I found out today that my quilt was juried into the finalist group. But I have to send it off to be judged and only then will I know if my quilt was accepted into the traveling exhibition. I'll find out sometime next month. I really have my fingers crossed. I just think it would be so neat to have a quilt traveling around for a year to a bunch of shows! I may not sleep until I know if it was accepted.
Thanks for reading today! I hope you found it interesting.
Jen
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