| This year for the Art Chair Auction I decided to do something different. Instead of making the chair itself, I am sewing a children's quilt to throw on a chair. It features images of beloved story characters and the invitation to "Curl Up Cozy and Read a Story". I didn't have to look far for the chair this year - it is my old overstuffed TV chair (oh darn. Now I'll have to buy a NEW ONE! :-) Since I am a Pottery teacher, NOT a quilter, my attempts at this will probably not be "according to Hoyle", but I am going to do the best I can. The outcome here is the thing, not the process! |
| I wanted the quilt theme to be characters from beloved children's books, certainly from books that my family and I have loved. For the quilt blocks I wanted to use images from their illustrations and their covers. I borrowed these from a list I found . . . . . . |
| Of course, anything I used HAD to include Cinderella for Gracie. I chose Bunicula for Genna, Good Night Moon for Charlie, the Velveteen Rabbit for my mother, Mike Mulligan for my brother Gil, Harry Potter for Chad and Stella Luna and Skippy Jon Jones for me (not Black Beauty or Misty of Chincoteague (though I don't know why). |
| I sized the pages so the images of each character measured 6 x 6, then printed them out. I taped the prints to the window so I could trace them out onto squares of muslin. (yes, the ART TEACHER IS TRACING!) . |
| Of course, everything I do is subject to Maeow's intense scrutiny and immediate participation. |
| I traced the images onto the muslin with (what I THOUGHT were) permanent ink marker pens. Tragically, I found out that one of them is NOT. I don't know |
| how much damage I have done. At any rate, the next step was to color in (just like a coloring book!) all of the images, using Prang crayons. |
| My "quilt guru" Connie Korsky tells me that they are the best ones to do the job properly. They certainly do work well. The colors are clear and crisp and you can blend them beautifully and make them bright and intense. They don't make "crumbs" but do make "dust", which is picked up well by a very light roll with a lint brush. |
| Next step is to heat set the crayon with an iron. Turn the steam off, dial up to just below the steam setting, flip the crayon side down onto paper towel and press until the colors brighten. They will be permently blended into the fabric. Peel off the towel and the excess crayon marks. |
| I cut a square of muslin 7 1/2" x 7 1/2" to use as a template. The muslin is almost transparent, so I could see the image through it just fine. And it stuck to the muslin below it so they turned as one piece on my cutting board while I cut the pieces to their finished size. I could spin them around when I needed to make a new cut. Cutting out all the quilt blocks went very fast this way. |
| The fabrics that I got for the quilt are blue-grey blender for the ladders and rails peach dotted calico for the center (and outside border) and a multi colored print for the backing. The images are not as pretty as the fabrics - |
| the colors aren't "true". This is a layout draft of the quilt. |
So it is 3:00 on Wednesday January 30th. Thanks to a bonechillingly frigid (10 degrees, wind chill 10 degrees BELOW 0) and blustery (25 mph winds) snow day, I have finished early on my project by two full evenings work. All I have left to do is sit tonight with a comforter on my shoulders and hand stitch the border to the backing (I tried it with my sewing machine, but I did not like the way it looked). The size of the quilt is 37" x 46". That is a little smaller than what I had first intended, but it turned out to be just fine, really, just the right size for a lap quilt. On Friday it is going down to Krause Memorial Library in Rockford to be on display for a week before the auction. Tomorrow I can now spend my time getting all the cat hair off the old Lazy Boy that has been "living" in the garage. It is the chair for the chair auction, and the quilt is going with it! |
| Here are some close up detail photos of the finished quilt squares (colored with crayon). |
| Bunicula and Charlotte's Web |
| The Polar Express and Olivia Pig |
| The Lorax and Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel |
| StellaLuna and Cat in the Hat |
| Skippy Jon Jones and the Velveteen Rabbit |
| Goodnight Moon and Harry Potter |
| Where the Wild Things Are and Cinderella |
| The center block was the killer. It almost did me in. I cut the letters from scraps of Laurel Burch fabric left over from one of my smocks and ironed them on with Wonder Under. That was the EASY part. |
| The nightmare part was the free-form machine appliqué. At THAT I am NOT GOOD. In fact, I am terrible at it. I am definitely going to have to have lessons and tips before I try to do it again!! The free-form quilting, on the other hand, was a snap. |