Eyes Only

"Eyes Only" was created through curiosity.  The Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci) is renowned for looking at you from any direction.  I wondered if I could recreate the same illusion.  I believe I have however - the full impact of this quilt appears through a camera lens rather than viewing it up close.

First I painted white drill fabric to create an orange cracked background

I sorted all my pieces of fabric into their different colour ways.  Each colour has "steam a seam" ironed onto the back before cutting up into small pieces.

I slowly built up my image using two pairs of tweezers and a ton of patience.

One thing I noticed was that steam a seam doesn't stay fused for very long onto the painted fabric.

I heavily quilted through all the small pieces matching thread colour.  Notice the orange coming through the gaps? I really wanted to create a rough look.

Finally as a finish - I did not put a binding on this quilt.  This quilt's impact is defiantly from a distance.

Shirls

My Final Kaleidoscope quilts.

I was fortunate to have these two kaleidoscope quilts accepted to hang in NZ's recent quilting Symposium at Taupo.

Scarlet Rose Finale.  I was meant to call it Phantom Rose Finale.  Phantom Rose being the name of the Robert Kauffman fabric I used (picture below)  However after a couple of wines I accidently called it Scarlet Rose when filling out the entry forms.  "Finale" is my statement that this is the last quilt I will be making for a long time exploring kaleidoscopes.

 

In one of my earlier posts I talked about making kaleidoscopes using squares.  Madelieje (daisy) was my second kaleidoscope entry.

 

This border fabric used for the above quilt is from Christine Graphs 2012 "Sausalito" series.

Exciting to use - and again the blocks looked better on point.  I unpicked the four black corners four times before I was happy with the quilting.

 

 Happy quilting friends.

Taupo Symposium 2013

I've just arrived back from NZ's recent quilting symposium.  6 glorious days living and breathing quilting and what a feast for the eyes - here is some of the quilts.

Set Adrift by Sonya Prchal

I am from II by Wendy Ward

The comfort of Stitch by Lee-Ann Newton

Fifteen by Camilla Watson

Jenny Bowker

 Gloria Loughman

I had the opportunity to attend Gwen Marston's two day small studies class.  Here's my result

I've placed a pen in the photograph to show the scale and size of the pieces.

This is Gwen with one of her larger quilts at the exhibition.

A fantastic time.  If you are interested in attending New Zealand's next quilting symposium it will be held end of January 2015 in Palmerston North.
Sirls