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I made this custom table runner a few months ago but it was going to be a gift so I didn't want to post it too soon. The customer picked an approximate size and suggested colors then since she was local, I let her come over (wearing masks, of course) to select which fabrics she wanted me to use.
We played around with the layout until she was satisfied with the design and also selected the backing and binding fabric.
In 2015, after the regular season of Project Quilting had finished, the coordinator decided to host a Focus Through the Prism series. Participants had to purchase a fabric bundle (although we could add additional fabrics), had to create a 20" x 20" quilt, and would have a month to complete each challenge. Every month a traditional quilt block would be selected and participants had to make one of the seven colors from the fabric bundle be the featured color.
Since the parameters of the challenge were to use specific fabrics and a given size, I decided it make all of the quilts similar enough to be a series, and the first quilt would help define what my series would look like.
Because this is the Quilt of the Week, it is 10% off the original price of $300 and as a special deal, all of the Focus Through the Prism quilts are 10% off through 5/16/21 if you purchase directly from me. Details can be found here.
Recap for Ab Intra:
"Ab intra is a Latin phrase (therefore. also used in modern legal terms) that means “from within.” Its opposite, ab extra, is “from outside.” Show us what it’s like inside to live in your unique body. What boundaries do you stay within? Who are you inside your social bubble (family, career, society)? How about a wearable art piece – any clothes you’d like to make where you’ll end up literally inside the finished project? Or, show us the internal spark that fires your creativity! What’s in your sketchbook or rolling around in your head?"
I found this theme a bit intimidating. My husband and I often joke about if we had a t-shirt to warn the rest of the world about ourself, what would our t-shirt say? He's a writer, so words are his thing. I'm an artist, so images are my theme. Thinking about what my t-shirt would say made me think of the pile of t-shirts that I've collected to make something out of. I do make t-shirt quilts although I haven't made one for myself. This particular t-shirt image spoke to me about what it's like for me as an artist.
I feel like the art I make is a part of myself and I'm sending it off into the world and maybe some of my art will inspire someone else to grow into the artist they need to be. I did some free-motion quilting, not something I do a lot of, and the path that they took makes me think of how I move through life, not necessarily in a straight line but in a general direction, getting distracted by this thing over here, then back on the path only to get interested in something over there, but eventually in the right direction.
I wrote the title of the piece at the bottom with free motion quilting.
The backing fabric is also appropriate because I am colorful and bold, although you have to get to know me a bit before I show you my back side, which might have some messy stitches in it.
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If this quilt looks similar to last week's Quilt of the Week, that's because it was made with the same technique, just with much more color. Like "Daybreak is Your Midnight" it uses hand dyed fabric and hand quilting but unlike Daybreak it has some sashing between the horizontal columns. The sashing, is that wide because I wanted to use this great fabric that had black with little brown stars on it but I'd only bought a quarter of a yard, so I calculated how much I'd need for the binding and what was left got to be sashing.
The hand quilting on this piece is three little stitches in all of the inset color pieces. I originally used a hand spun thread but noticed a few years later that the stitches were disintegrating so I removed them and redid the hand stitching with embroidery floss. The original thread was a maroon color but when I redid it I used maroon in the yellows but orange in the blues and purples. I used a chunky, multi-colored yarn along the sashing and the binding.
I made it for the Project Quilting challenge "Sunrise/Sunset" so I designed and created it all in one week. The name comes from the Sunset Celebration that happens every evening in Key West only I wrote the title wrong on the label, so now it's a celebration of the sunrise, although with most of my art pieces that have sunsets, they could all be sunrises, also.
