Yellow Springs Americana Series: Picnic at Ellis Pond

"Picnic at Ellis Pond," 18.5" x 28", made by Pam Geisel, July 2013

All of the quilts in this series were made the same way. Using InDesign, I drew the outlines for the shapes then printed them out actual size (I had to tile print them onto 9 sheets of paper then tape them back together).

"Picnic at Ellis Pond" in progress

I placed the printed layout under a piece of fusible interfacing, which is thin enough to still see the outlines, and built the quilt top by putting the fabric pieces on top of the interfacing.

Once the pieces are all in place they are fused to the interfacing. The quilts are all machine quilted, sometimes with a foot and sometimes with free motion, although it can sometimes be difficult doing free motion quilting on a quilt that has a lot of fused pieces of fabric as the needle will drag and not do what you want it to.

All of the quilts are faced for their binding so the binding isn’t visible, and I “signed” them all with the sewing machine.

I knew I wanted one of the quilts to be a picnic scene but wasn’t sure where it should be. I went out with my camera to several places around Yellow Springs including the picnic area at John Bryan State Park but the images from John Bryan could have been anywhere.

Reference photo

I ended up at Ellis Pond and thought the combination of the pond and the weeping willow trees made it more distinct, although I did make some adjustments to the layout.

"Picnic at Ellis Pond" detail

The picnic basket features one of the few commercial prints used in this series, most of the fabrics are hand dyed or batiks, but I already had the fabric and it was the right size so I went with it. The backing fabric is also the basket weave.

"Picnic at Ellis Pond" detail

I’d bought the water fabric awhile ago with the intent of using it for water at some point.

The quilt under the basket is fused but the edges were folded over to give it some dimension against the grass.

This is all machine raw edge appliqué.

More about this quilt and the Americana Series