Pam Geisel Art Quilts: Quilt Encounters of the Thread Kind

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Quilt Encounters of the Thread Kind - my 600th Quilt AND and Art Panel

"Quilt Encounters of the Thread Kind" 16" x 21", handmade by Pam Geisel, 2019

I'm a member of Village Artisans, an artist co-op in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Several years ago some community members created art panels that hung on the outside of our building at 100 Corry St. Unfortunately time and weather caused some of the panels to warp and split and we decided it was time to create some new panels.

I knew my 600th quilt was coming up and I decided that I wanted to make a panel (24" x 48") and also a quilt with the same image. I actually had a lot of ideas and was having difficulty narrowing it down but I also wanted to use paint that I already had on hand. Eventually I settled on a UFO and camping idea.

Luckily when I went to use the paint, most of it was still good (a little surprising considering the paint was 18 years old! Way to go Do It Best High Gloss Enamel!). I had originally planned on the body of the UFO being red but the red paint can was rusted shut but fortunately for me I also had a can of purple and hadn't planned on using it, but it was still good.

I wanted to use the shapes on my panel as solid colors (instead of blending them while painting) so it would translate better when I made the quilted image, which I also made a little wider, proportionally.

Once the panel was finished, I made the quilt. I used hand dyed fabric which I fused then sewed down the edges when quilting and I added some quilting around the moon and coming out of the UFO.

I used my favorite knife-edge binding but I liked the look of the ground floating in the blue so I left part of the background showing at the bottom and on the sides.