Morning Make 2023 - Raw Edge Appliqué Portrait

This portrait feels a little more me. I don’t mean the likeness, although I think that is there. Rather, as a quilt it feels more me. To complete the portrait I made up the process. Enough years of play and exploration gave the confidence to just go for it. Well, that and a willingness to try a few things in the hopes of success. Also, very me.

Since my drawing skills are lacking, albeit improving, I took a different tact to create my actual portrait. I printed out a photo of myself and traced it. I reduced the lines to those necessary to get a likeness and some interest, with a hope that it wasn’t too much of a cartoon. I just printed the photo off at the office, on the regular inkjet printer. After tracing my lines I scanned the new drawing to create a digital image. This I sent to my local print shop to have printed at a much larger scale. I think we used their 18” x 24” printer.

Once I had the drawing I reversed it and traced it on to some double sided fusible. In this case, Wonder Under. I’ve had good luck with it in the past so was confident using it here. More on that shortly. I debated a glittery purple for the appliqué but ended up with a tone on tone black from my own fabric collection.

With the lines traced I pressed the fusible and fabric together. I cut out the appliqué from the fabric. In hindsight I would have made less cuts, like where the jaw line and hair meet, but I was a bit unsure of how it would come together at the beginning.

For the background I decided I wanted something that felt more me. The previous portraits were great, but I wanted a bit more of my kind of quilting in there. Instead of making something new, I dug out all the crumb blocks I’ve made over the years and put together a handful to create the background. Knowing I was using black for the appliqué I tried to use pieces with as few black or dark pieces in it, so that there was always contrast with the appliqué. Without a purpose built selection of crumb blocks this is mostly, but not all the way successful. I’m still happy with it. And one dark scrap ends up mimicking the scar on my neck from last year’s thyroid surgery.

After playing with the positioning I removed the backing from the fusible and pressed the appliqué into place. And pressed it into place, and pressed it into place. It would stick for a while then come undone. Rather frustrating. I’ve never had trouble with Wonder Under before. I even bought new stuff in case what I had was too old. If I do this again I will be choosing a different fusible.

The drama with the fusing led to my quilting plan. I didn’t want to zig zag stitch around every piece. I just don’t like that look. But with the appliqué misbehaving I needed a dense quilting plan to keep everything in place. Matchstick quilting was the obvious choice, but I don’t like to be too predictable. I marked a few lines and decided to do rays from one corner. A lot of rays.

WIth a strong multicolour background I knew that thread colour wasn’t super important. With dense enough quilting it would also hold the appliqué down and provide varying contrast on the black fabric. Embracing my inner and outer scrap quilter I pulled out all the partially filled bobbins that I had. Finding their coordinating spools I went nuts with multicolour rays. And I cleaned out 6 bobbins to open them up for new thread choices without wasting any thread!

All of my self portrait quilts are bound with the same tone on tone black fabric using the single fold technique. It creates a sharp edge on these smaller quilts.

Since finishing these quilts I’ve been practicing my drawing and painting some more. I recently started an embroidered portrait too. Perfect for on the go. I’ve got my next quilted portrait planned out too. I want to continue to explore how I can make these more me.

Morning Make 2023 - Collage Portraits

Up first in my portrait making, aside from learning how to draw, was something I was just a bit familiar with. Back in 2017 I took a class with Melissa Averinos on making faces in fabric. I made one face, loved the process, developed some grand ideas, then promptly did nothing about them. Needless to say, that’s why I chose to start with this technique. Also, I was using her book to learn the drawing basics so it was a natural extension.

In the book Melissa walks us through the basics of anatomy and shape. She outlines many ways your can interpret this with fabric, then encourages you to go for it. It’s all so very approachable. She also has tonnes of examples. You can see the myriad ways people, her students, took to the portraits. You also get to see a big selection of her own work. It is all inspiring.

The first photo I took to interpret in fabric was my headshot, the main photo on the homepage here. I found it an interesting challenge because it is hard for me to convey depth in the collage. It’s obvious in the photo but in the collage the shoulders look a little off. But can we take a moment to celebrate my hair?! She is quilted with a million thread colours and stops and starts, providing texture and depth.

The second collage portrait I did was in black and white. I took a colour photo from when I was visiting Lucy Maud Montgomery’s house in PEI. I was just to happy on that entire trip and it shows in the original photo. I think the collage does not quite show that. In fact, it feels a bit skeletal to me. That being said, I still really like it. I played with being a bit more abstract in shapes and with value. To soften the whole thing I used a pale pink thread for quilting.

To finish both quilts I did give them a quick soak and blocked them. They are small (less that 20” on any side) but had got a bit misshapen in handling. This roughed up the fabric and I discovered places I hadn’t quilted as well. A few repairs with both glue and the sewing machine were needed. Then the mini quilts are bound with a single fold binding in a black on black print. I decided to be consistent among all my self portraits with binding and treated it like a picture frame.

These quilts were an excellent first start to this Morning Make adventure. Fundamentally, I am a quilter so fabric portraits are the way to go for me. Will I make more fabric collages? I’m not sure. the technique is freeing and effective, yes, but I don’t love the roughness of the raw edges. You do get ultimate freedom in cutting your collage though. I think this is a great technique for play and it may instead stay in the repertoire for that reason, even if I don’t make another full portrait quilt with it.

December Morning Make 2022

A bit too on the nose?

In December I dug into my daughters’ craft supplies, augmented by yarn scraps from a dear friend who knits, and experimented with punch needle. Each day I used one little ball of yarn to randomly fill a space. It’s easy to do and doesn’t take long at all. Indeed, some morning’s I was at it for only 5-10 minutes. In the crazy days of the winter holiday season it was just about perfect.

We had a ball of that ultra soft acrylic yarn in white. A fake chenille? It was the right choice for the directions.

I’ve been thinking about touch a lot this winter. Realizing, mostly, how important it is to me. Not that I am a huge smuggler or hugger, but I do love a good hand hold. I was reading about how you can get your own body to release dopamine and serotonin and reduce cortisol (the stress hormone) through non-sexual touch. I found myself gently petting or rubbing my own hands in a calming gesture. My husband thought I was weird, if I’m being honest, but I found it very helpful.

Thinking about touch and seeing the benefit of these simple hand movements for myself also made me realize that this is part of why I like hand work. Using your hands isn’t just useful for the task at hand. It activates something else, something associated with the sense of touch outside of the brain’s task. When I am getting stressed or ansty I tend to feel an energy in my hands that is distracting and uncomfortable. I am often looking for an outlet to ‘get it out’. The more hand work I do, the more active my hands are in a positive way, the less I feel that bad energy.

Punch needle itself is practically fool proof with the right tools. Obviously some yarns and tools are easier to work with. It really does help, as well, to use the right base cloth. If I were to do this again I would upgrade our punch, the cheap plastic one we had was nice for being adjustable, but not very comfortable in the hand.

One of the things I quite liked is that the back is/can be as neat as the front. Depending on whether you used the punch from the front or the back it changes what you see, but both work. Varying the thickness and type of yarn as well as the depth of the punch meant I have a lot of textural and visual variation in the piece. Being open to the scrappy nature of this comes naturally for me as a quilter. If I hadn’t used words I could have chosen which side to display.

In the end, I mounted the piece on an old dollar store canvas with a staple gun. We don’t need another pillow in this house and I liked the visual of a mounted piece.

Noelle

Noelle

72” x 72”

I’m either really late finishing a Christmas quilt or really early for next year. Let’s go with the latter, shall we?

This quilt was started in the Quilters’ Playcation Cut Sew Repeat Party in December. It’s such a quick way to make a quilt top that I had it done a few days later. With a long arm appointment already booked I decided to go ahead and finish her quickly.

It was a quick make, a fast quilt, and a quick finish. I still didn’t get it done before Christmas. It’s all good, I’m just ready for next year! I used a light turquoise thread for the quilting in freehand, wavy lines. It’s almost garland like.

The fabric all comes from the Alison Glass Holiday collection. Buying a single collection bundle is not my norm, but I’d picked this up early in the pandemic as an example for a stash class I was teaching. It is an unconventional holiday fabric and I love that. Using a single collection is a fantastic way to explore the Cut Sew Repeat Technique AND show off the fabric at the same time.

When I finished quilting I took a quick look around My Sewing Room, where I was renting the long arm time, and found this coral fabric in the clearance section. What a find! I had been thinking hot pink but there are just enough hints of this coral in the multicolour prints of the collection that it worked perfectly. It was a lovely way to spend a few afternoons of winter finishing up the binding by hand.

The Cut Sew Repeat Party is returning on March 18. I’ll have a different stack of fabric, but the same great fun ready for you. Even if you attended the Party last time, we will have new treats and tips to explore as we play with our fabric. You can register here.