First, I took that gorgeous shot that Renee did, and I projected it onto my quilting design wall. So it's now about 20" x 30" or so. Think poster-size. I put some butcher paper up on the wall, and I traced the outline of the elk, as well as some of the places where the color changes a lot. These will represent different fabrics in the final quilt. I made 2 copies of this tracing.
Next, I chose some background fabrics. As you can see in the photo, the background is grey and green, and fuzzy. I wanted to get a 'sky' look but blue didn't appeal to me, so I chose 5 different grey fabrics, and sewed them together in curved strips to come up with this (pinned with safety pins to the batting and backing.So now I'm quilting this piece.
Quilting means that I'm decoratively sewing this piece from the top, through all three layers of top, batting, and backing.
Next, I took one of the tracings and cut it up so that I had a representative piece for each separate fabric color I wanted. I used the paper pieces as templates, and with the help of Steam-a-Seam, I created "iron on patches" that I'll be able to iron onto one another, for the face and antlers of the elk.
But I'm not planning to just iron on all these pieces to one another, and then iron that piece onto the background.
A good friend and GREAT QUILTER, Nicole, gave me the idea to create some depth to the important pieces, like the tongue, jowls, and eye. These will actually have some batting behind them (using the trapunto method) so they will "stick out" a bit.
Then, I'll do LOTS and LOTS of stitching on the face to make it seem very realistic. This is also called "threadpainting."
Here's an example of another quilt I threadpainted on - this one is completely thread - with the elk, I'll probably leave some of the fabric showing behind the thread.
Anyway - this is keeping me busy lately. Enjoy your weekend!
