Happy May 17th everyone again! Today is the start of one of my favorite two times of the year – the Spring Edition of the Blogger’s Quilt Festival over at AmysCreativeSide!
If you’ve never been at my blog before – Welcome! and for those who have – Welcome Back!
I had a hard time deciding which ‘second’ quilt I wanted to enter into the Blogger’s Quilt Festival I asked for help – and it seems like most love them all equally…so I’m going with my gut keeping in mind that there will be another Blogger’s Quilt Festival this fall!
I have decided to enter my quilt
“Local Foods Grow Local Communities’ into the art quilt category.
I created this piece based on the Project QUILTING Challenge ‘Print Publications’
Basically – we were challenge to grab a print publication, turn to page 28 and be inspired by what we saw. I choose a publication called ‘Grow’ and when turned to page 28 it happened to be the reason I had that publication in my possession. A friend had brought it by because my family’s apple orchard was mentioned in an article. When I turned to page 28…it was the first page of the article we were featured in. It was destiny…time to be inspired!
When I looked at my page 28 I knew I had an easy page for inspiration. BUT the challenge I made for myself was that I wanted to be ‘inspired’ by the page and not just replicate the page.
The Locavore School is about bringing local foods into the school lunches. My orchard has been providing apples to multiple school districts in the area for many years. I finally knew what I wanted to do!
Upper left: First – I needed a background. Nothing in my stash was what I was looking for so I decided to paint my own. I used a neutral piece of Tula Pink’s ‘Prince Charming’ print and I did a watered down acrylic painting on it. It’s watered down enough so you can still see the images of the original print if you look closely.
Upper Middle: I needed to draw a tree…that was my plan – I wanted to show a tree in it’s entirety – including the roots. So I sketched it out and then traced the sections onto some iron on fusible.
Upper Right: I chose to do the roots mostly with an apple printed fabric. I did mix in other foods such as eggs, peas, corn, and carrots into the roots as well but since we’re an apple orchard I figured that would be a good focus.
Lower Left: I knew I wanted my ‘tree’ to be made of kids. Here I need to let you know that we only have one week to complete a Project QUILTING Challenge. If you nee a certain fabric you need to buy it right away in the week. It took me a few days to come up with my concept and my time was running low. I searched my stash for all the ‘people’ prints I could find, Diane pulled al the ‘people’ from her stash too. It wasn’t what I was envisioning. At this point it was Wednesday and on Wednesday my baby Pip goes to a sitter who also happens to sew. I was explaining my concept to her and asked her if she happened to have any ‘kid’ prints. And what you see in the trees is what she had! She was kind enough to donate a fat quarter of it to my project and it was seriously the PERFECT PIECE! I used kid print for the tree top and then I did a scrappy collection of different prints for the trunk so you can still distinguish between the two.
Lower Middle: I free motion quilted along the roots and around the tree. With the painted fabric it created sort of a ‘puffy’ effect.
Lower RIght: To finish it off I embellished with some Angellina fibers in the roots and the sky. I added a ‘lip’ of pink strawberry printed fabric on the edge and with the binding. I made it too big…so I tacked it back in a few different places around the corner. It’s hard to see in the picture but it created this really awesome wavy effect to the border of the quilt. I will definitely be using this technique again!
Here’s the finished quilt with the inspiration page next to it! I hope you enjoyed reading about my process and inspiration for my piece ‘Local Foods Grow Strong Communities.’
‘The festival starts today, and runs through May 31st. It’s open to anyone who wants to enter, and there will be lots of great prizes. Be sure to check it out NOW! Get your post written and show off your quilt or quilts! You can enter two this year!
Once you’ve had a chance to visit as many of the quilts, as possible you may nominate your very favorite, for a Viewer’s Choice Award! To nominate complete the form at the bottom of the THIS POST with the link to the post and your email address. Nominations without a valid email will be eliminated, and multiple nominations with the same email will be eliminated. One entry per email address please.
If ‘Local Foods Grow Strong Communities’ is your favorite quilt head over to THIS POST and copy the text below:
I would like to nominate : Persimon Dream’s Local Foods Grow Strong Communities – http://www.persimondreams.com/?p=5463
Thanks for your support!
Just wow! I sincerely appreciate the global mentality and tree metaphor. Love it!
I have added you to my reader after poking around (HAD to!). Your art is amazing and inspiring…
This was such a fun challenge and your tree is a delight.
What a neat quilt! I love all the fun details, especially the little heart in the roots at the base of the tree! Beautifully done!
xo -E
What a special cute. My guild did a similar challenge, and I lived it.
It must be too early in the morning because I sure messed up that comment. It is a special *quilt* and I *love* it!
😉 thanks so much! Glad you stopped by 😉
Amazing! I love the whole concept and it is such a beautiful piece too.
Love the concept and how you developed it. I'd love to see this printed as a logo or banner for farmers markets or a community garden.
wonderful little quilt so fun see your process and all the sysmbolism