I really liked our last 12 x 12 theme, “Illumination” (not that I didn’t like the previous ones). There were so many directions in which I could go. I thought I had a good direction, but then upon further exploration, an idea I thought was hokey at first, turned out to be the one that captured my attention.

I wanted to convey the idea of reading a book under the covers by flashlight; a concept with illumination both in the act of reading and in the light of the lamp. My first thought was to make two quilts attached at the top — the top one looking like a basic utility quilt and the bottom one with an image of a boy reading by flashlight. But that sounded too gimmicky. With input from faithful blog readers, I considered using a transparent top layer, making the whole thing transparent, making the top quilt permanently pulled up, and various other options. I finally decided on a pretty simple one: quilt on the front, boy on the back. By turning over the quilt, or lifting the “covers,” one automatically finds the boy underneath. Although I had first considered appliquéing the boy, I decided that it would have been better done when I had my full stash of fabrics to choose from so that I could carefully model the face with the right tints, tones and patterns. I then decided to hide the boy in the quilting. Seemed appropriate.

But, after quilting a third of the picture, I decided that it was far too dense on the front side and lost the quality of vintage utility quilt that I was after. This test was a good chance to adjust the thread and the tension and make sure I had enough information in my water soluble sketch traced onto the backing fabric. My next attempt was the full 12 x 12 inch piece, quilted first on just the backing and batting, then joined to the front with only an outline of the reading boy.

But something was nagging me.

I didn’t like the unevenness of  my stitching. Part of it is lack of practice, but since this is a two month challenge, I don’t exactly have the luxury of spending two years perfecting thread drawn portraits. Part of it was the many seams I was sewing over; and part was that it was the bobbin thread showing and bobbin stitches are almost never as nice as top stitches.

I pondered my options (pull out the outline stitching and try again); do another and do the outlining with water soluble thread (shopping trip) from the back and then turn it over and do final stitching from the front; make a new one and join the layers with in-the-ditch quilting with invisible monofiliment thread. Or do something I hadn’t yet conceived of. Then I realized it was the whole drawing I wasn’t happy with. It lacked the “hand” of the sketch. Understandable, since I’ve been drawing with a pencil for nearly 40 years, but drawing with a needle for about one. As practice makes perfect, I determined that I just needed to do the whole thing again. I allowed myself a little more leeway  in terms of line versus shape of shadow, and being essentially the third time drawing the face, practice factored in some.

This time , I used more lines in the facial features, and allowed more character in the direction of the stitches. It’s still not as good as the sketch, but I’m pretty happy with it. I also decided to join the layers by tying as many utility quilts were/are tied. It showed up even less on the portrait side than I had anticipated so that was a nice surprise.

So, if you haven’t already done so, go on over to the 12 x 12 blog to see the rest of this quilt and everyone else’s too.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Quilts in Progess, Twelve by Twelve. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.