Custom "50 Years" Art Quilt

"50 Years," 17" x 35", made by Pam Geisel, October 2020

I enjoy making custom quilts for people, especially ones made to celebrate milestones. I was recently contacted by someone who had purchased the quilt "Summer Storm" (at left) from me several years ago and they wanted me to make something similar to give to his wife for their 50th Anniversary.

Fortunately, I still had some of the fabric that I used in the original quilt although I did have to add a few additional fabrics. 

Since this was to celebrate their 50th Anniversary, he suggested having 50 squares, each with an "L" shape, since "L" in the Roman Numeral for 50. To make it visually interesting, the "L"s are randomly rotated and also don't have an perfect 90 degree angles.

Like on the original, I machine quilted it with wavy lines and did some hand stitching with embroider thread.

Why the Cow Jumped Over the Moon Baby Quilt (an experiment with fabric printing with Spoonflower)

 

"Why the Cow Jumped Over the Moon" baby quilt, 24" x 37.5", made by Pam Geisel, October 2020

If this piece looks familiar, it's because it's based on the art quilt I made called "Quilt Encounters of the Thread Kind." When I made the first quilt my husband said there should be a cow being pulled up by the UFO's tractor beam.

Recently one of our friends, who knew about my husband's suggestion of the cow, had a need for a baby quilt and he wanted the UFO quilt with a cow added. The original, which had already been sold, was a fused raw-edge applique, which is great for art quilt but not so much for a baby quilt which will likely get frequent washings.

Knowing that I have my art quilts on Pixels, which prints images onto t-shirts and other items, he suggested I have the image printed onto fabric and make the baby quilt with that.

So I digitally added the cow and had the whole thing printed at Spoonflower.com. Since I hadn't had any fabric printed before, I was curious as to how it would come out.

Overall I'm happy with the results. I basted the printed fabric, batting, and backing fabric then quilted on top of the printed quilting lines. 

The printed fabric wasn't quite as soft as regular fabric but it did soften some when I prewashed the fabric. 

Because the original used hand dyed fabrics and details lost when the image was enlarged aren't that noticeable. Also if commercial fabrics had been used there might be some copyright issues.

Since I added the cow and it's a baby quilt, I changed the title to "Why the Cow Jumped Over the Moon." And I uploaded an image with the cow added to Pixels so I can have it printed on a t-shirt for my husband.