Expressions of Joy #1

This art quilt is made for my granddaughter Sydney Ruth who just turned 3. I wanted to create a memory of her 2nd year in either a fabric altered book or quilt, which I chose. The beauty of morning pages is that ideas appear “out of nowhere,” like the idea to have the photo/image block pop up to reveal one of her accomplishments for the year. So I created mini quilts for each image and stitched it to the quilt top leaving a top border so it would lift easily. My daughter provided me with the “list of things learned and accomplished” and I chose those that were most fun and important (to me). I printed the images and text on fabric paper in the inkjet printer. I printed the whole list on fabric paper and attached to the quilt back.



The collection of fabrics would are not my favorite – too much pink. But Sydney has become a “girly girl” and pink is appropriate as a dominant color. I integrated the pinks with greens blues and some deeper roses to make it livelier and also to represent her very lively personality. I was challenged (as usual) with lining up the blocks even though each was cut to the exact same size and I marked ¼ inch borders … somehow that didn’t translate well. However because of the piecing of the blocks there are lots of seams and so one isn’t distracted by the fact that the main blocks aren’t lined up (well I am but I must get over that since I don’t seem to have that capability.)
The binding also presented a challenge because I don’t pay attention to fabric cut and bias and all that. I rolled the backing fabric over to the front to create a self-binding. In stitching it pulled and scrunched and didn’t act perfectly. By adding hand stitching along the edge I hope I’ve distracted from that technical glitch.

I added a sleeve to the back so they can insert a dowel and hang it – I do hope it hangs straight! See if I took a basic quilting class I (hopefully) wouldn’t be so challenged with fabric cuts, alignment, binding and hanging. But that would be way too boring!