Now that I’m finished the collage piecing of my quilt “Earthshine,” it’s time to prepare it for quilting—I’m on the home-stretch!
The fabric collage technique is a raw-edged appliqué of sorts, so taking care of loose edges is my first task before it’s ready to slide underneath the neck of my sewing machine. So I “combed” the quilt with my fingers to find all the raw edges that, now that the collage creation is done, needed to be secured with a bit of glue. I don’t expect perfection of myself with this step as I’ll no doubt continue to find loose edges all the way through the quilting process itself.
The video below begins with searching for loose edges and the extra advantage of using sheers for details (hint: they help to cut down on the amount of gluing needed). I’ve used lots of different kinds of sheers in the making of this piece. All over the collage—the earth, the face, the background—I’ve used pieces of sheer netting and tulle, printed and glittered, to add details of visual texture and form—adding to the fanciful nature of this portrait of my son Sam.
Then there’s the assembly of layers for quilting. In that sense, the layers of a fabric collage quilt is basically the same as other styles of quilts: top, batting, and backing, then baste for quilting—and those steps in completing Sam’s quilt are touched on in the video as well.
Quilting will come next, then trimming and binding. As of this moment, the horns of the moon will be breaking the edges and the bottom of the quilt will be the curve of the moon. How will I be binding (and hanging) such a contoured quilt? Well, I’m not exactly sure yet, but I’ll get there. And I’ll let you know what I did in a future post of Sam’s portrait, “Earthshine.”
To see earlier steps of this quilt check out these posts: here and here and here and here and here and here!
What a beautiful work of art!!! Can’t wait for the end result.
Amazingly beautiful!! Another award winner!! One question. What glue do you use that doesn’t cause issues with your sewing machine? Thanks!
Hi Lenore! I use Aileen’s Tacky Glue Original formula. Dries like any regular white glue. Because I “smear” the glue on here and there, it doesn’t (usually) accumulate much in any one area—and if it does, my machine goes right through it.
Magnificent work, as always from such a talented creative artiste!
Beautiful! I love that even though it is very fanciful, there is no doubt that it is Sam. I also appreciated the fact that you said you would continue to find loose edges even during the quilting process. I thought that was just me, too impatient!
I love this moon. I have a question, how do you keep them clean if you hang on your wall? I have hot air and dust all the time. I hate to hang and it gets dirty, because you can not wash.
A gentle vacuuming does the trick. If you’re worried about sucking off some of the pieces (as I am) you can lay a coarse screening over the top to hold everything down and then vacuum.