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Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Fall 2016 - Applique

Vincent
Dimensions: 13''x15''

This is my first entry for the Blogger Quilt Festival, Applique Quilt!
The second entry is here (mini)




If you are new around here, WELCOME!
If you have been around for a while, THANKS AND WELCOME BACK! :)

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If you are new around here, let me just point you to my main addiction: designing and sharing for free tons of paper piecing patterns :)


As you can see from one of my old headers arrangement, I design patterns for Disney characters, Peanuts and Snoopy, Downton Abbey, Alice in Wonderland but I have many many more (Maleficent, The Simpsons, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Betty Boop, Minions and more)!! Some of them have to be tested, some of there are tested. You can find them just navigating the different tabs or just typing the character name in the search box at the top of the page.

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So let me tell you their story!

Everything started with my obsession about Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" and the amazing work of Adam Lister (adamlistergallery.com).

When I read about the AMB challenge, the use of solids (and just solids) didn't make me very excited (I don't like solids, don't hate me please :) ). However I thought that it could be the best excuse to finally put Van Gogh's painting down to fabric! But how exactly? I started googling around images of the painting and I came across Adam's wonderful "pixellated" reproductions of classic art and famous characters. As soon as I saw his version of the painting I had the moment "That's it! That's exactly what I was looking for!". I immediately got in touch with him and he was very kind and curious to see how his art would translate into fabric!

Now the difficult part: how can I reproduce this look and keep somehow the spirit of Van Gogh's irregular impressionistic look?
Raw edge applique and thread painting look the only reasonable option!
Of course I never tried any of these technique :) but luckily July tutorial of my series "Stretch Your Skills" was exactly that! So thanks to the wonderful tips and instructions by Kristel (wipgirl) I was able to make a little practice piece that gave me the confidence I needed to attack the big project!

A lot of designing, cutting, fusing and sewing later, this is what I had!



The irregular edges of the different pieces, combined with the irregular crossing of the quilting makes the piece really "impressionist" (IMHO).
I didn't want to add any distraction with the binding, so I used a pillow case method to finish it.
And this mini WAS ACCEPTED in the 40 (out of 230 submitted) minis for the Road to California exhibit!!

After finishing this piece, however, I had a lot of solids leftovers. One day I went to visit the Phillips Collection and I saw a painting from Piet Mondrian (Composition No. III) and I realized that I could make another mini for the challenge!


Since I didn't have white as leftover but blues, I decided to play with the colors and this was the result. It's very simple and the quilting is random straight lines to echo the simple shapes that Mondrian is famous to paint.

This quilt was not accepted in the exhibit, but I still think it's pretty and it balances the impressionistic look of "Vincent"!

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If you have any comment about these quilts, I would love to hear!!!
And  check out more wonderful applique quilts over at blogger's quilt festival!!

6 comments:

  1. Starry Night is one of my favorites as well! It is one of my 'some day' ideas that I hope to tackle when the right idea and inspiration strikes. Your take on the painting is lovely, congrats on getting accepted into the exhibit!

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  2. Starry Night is one of my faves too. I just love this!

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  3. Awesome interpretation! That is so cool!!

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  4. Very artsy creative quilt designs. I love them both. Now following your blog.

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