top of page

AQC 2019 Melbourne

Well I have to say this year would have to be the first time I have done a quilt show and not had time to do videos and be a bit silly online

I had a couple of quilts of my own in the the magic competition and selfie competition and only just realised this year that people actually vote for them.

I didn't win anything but I was so proud to have my artwork up on the walls with all these other talented quilters and artists

This miniature quilt was the selfie challenge and I often chat to friends on messenger and use the different filters and have a bit of a laugh while chatting .

I took a photo one day with a friend of mine with a hippie filter and this is what I got. 

I thought it was pretty funny and so did my friend but I thought if pretty much depicts what I'm like like and my personality.

It was also fun and quick to make

I used raw edge applique as a technique and quilted it

This quilt was for the magic challenge.

And it was a challenge figuring out what magic meant to me.

So I went back through my childhood in my mind and thought magic to me was the love of a woman and a horse and the stories of princesses and pixies and fairies and unicorns and flying horses and mushrooms and all sorts of wonderful magical mystical things that children dream of.

So I went through Shutterstock and purchased a photo that depicted what I was looking for.

I think the hardest thing sometimes is just getting the idea or getting the idea and getting it from your brain onto paper and then onto fabric. So going through shutterstocks photos that you can purchase and use for things like this really did help when searching for the right subject.

Once I found the right photo I then needed to figure out how I was going to turn this into an art quilt.

So I went to a favourite technique of mine using silk as my fabric then painting the picture onto the silk with opulence silk paints. And then stitching the detail in to the areas that I thought needed them.

I wanted to keep the the background Wishy Washy and mysterious so I kept it dark and a little bit gloomy but not to gloomy. I used a textile mesh along the top edge of the quilt to create a little bit more Darkness but again not too much.

I really wanted the girl and the horse to be the light of the project.

So I worked on the horse and really thread worked it to get that detail and to give him his character and beauty that he deserved.

Once I had the horse pretty much done, I then decided the girl needed her detail and I would say that her face gave me the most amount of trouble and was very hard to get right. I just kept working on it until I was happy enough to say that it was done. But then highlighted with a little bit of inktense pencils to lighten up the skin and give her a blush rather than orange look.

The dress originally started out as a soft silky pink and I decided that it needed to look more flowy. So I used organza to give it the folds and creases and texture that it needed to make it look like it was long and trailing. I think I achieve that.

I really like the background and I love the horse. It's funny that I get choosy and picky with which sections of a quilt that I like but I tend to do that.

We are our own worst Critic

But as I always say I would rather be happy then perfect anyday.

Of course I used metallic threads in the wings and I used inktense pencils to paint the mushrooms on and I thread painted it to an inch of it's life these are all techniques that I teach in my workshops.

I do have some silk workshop classes coming up that you can book into. These are normally two day classes so that you get the time to actually paint and prepare your artwork before thread working it on your sewing machine.

The best part about this is you don't need to know how to paint and you don't need to know how to quilt to be able to do this technique.

I really do hope that more of you take up the opportunity to learn such a wonderful and enjoyable technique as silk painting.

Enjoy your Easter break I will see you after the long weekend

Cheers Michelle

Featured Posts
Recent Posts
Archive
Search By Tags
Follow Us
  • Facebook Basic Square
  • Twitter Basic Square
  • Google+ Basic Square
bottom of page