She Started It!......

My sister Anne and I decided to collaborate on a project for North Carolina Quilt Symposium 2015. We decided to start a project and then "switch" and then finish each others project. We had both taken almost identical pictures of the most amazing Southern Magnolia at NCQS 2014 and decided to use those as our subject matter. I blew up my photo to 11x17".

Then I made a black and white copy of the photo

and then I traced the picture out with tracing paper so I can put the white cotton fabric over it and trace in onto the fabric.

After I did that, I painted the flower and leaves in.

 

 

Just as I got Kathie Started It finished, I got Anne's in the mail.

 

Anne had opted to do an applique of the flower and sent me the pieces beautifully basted on a red back ground.

 

I like the red and it was a great contrast for the white petals however, I could see red coming through the white so I decided to play around with some dyes and dyed new fabric to use.

 

 

Then I ironed the pieces into place and added leaves.

 

 I started to shadow in some of the areas with my Derwent  Inktense pencils. If you get a chance to but these, get them! They blend like water color pencils however once they are heat set, they are permanent.

 

 

Then it came time to applique the flower to the background and thread sketch the details into the petals and the leaves.

 

Once I got that petals taken I had to quilt the piece before I tackled the flower center. I didn't want to take a chance on crushing the center in ANY of the finishing process.

 

The center was the biggest challenge. As you can see from the pictures above it's quite a large part of the flower and it's anything but flat.

 

I found some white ribbon and cut it into 1" pieces.

 

I then laid out a light brown ribbon, taped it down and added a small line of glue,

 

 then laid the pieces of ribbon on the glue and waited for it to dry. When it was dry, I ran it through my sewing machine to secure them tightly.

 

I did the same thing with some pipe cleaners

 

Then I laid them on the center and stitched them down, row by row until I had the right layout.

 

and Viola, I had my center, and I added prisma colors I matched at the art store to get as much contrast as I could.

 

 and then, using Gel Medium to sculpt the center into place. This step took much longer than I anticipated. I learned to use straws cut down, bobby pins and tape to help keep the curl.

 

and adding some hot fix crystals I was able to safely say I was finished and sent Anne Started It off to NCQS 2015.

 

We'll find out 5/28/15 how it does.