Inspector Judy of the "Quilt Police"
In the comments section of my previous posting about my brush with quilting greatness dutchrose asked "how did she achieve the look of blurriness in the 'background' of the quilt? a fabric design? a bleaching technique? sewn strips? all of the closeup pics have been of the outer edges and i'm very curious."
This photo shows my bit of silliness when I pretended to look for a flaw in the Best of Show quilt but it also shows a better view of the background fabric. I read somewhere online that it was pieced from an RJR fabric and I do recall seeing a fabric once that ran in bands of red from one selvege to another light red at one side to dark red at another side. So imagine four giant triangles of a gradated gray fabric meeting with the lightest gray points in the center ...
Lois Ide told me that Ted had worked four years in the making of this quilt so I don't think you would be able to find this fabric on the market today.
One thing that boggled my mind in seeing this quilt up close and personal was the hand quilting of that grid ...
Judy
posted by Judy in Ohio @ 9:42 PM
5 Comments:
At May 1, 2008 at 1:17 AM ,
dutchrose said...
thank you judy, for your response to my question. i've seen a similar fabric that you described, and actually i had seen that same type of fabric many years ago. i actually have some of it too, i bought it in a couple of colorways because i was going to make a feathered heart (applique) where the color went from dark to light. i made one for our guild's raffle quilt and liked it so much that i always planned to make a small 4 block quilt of my own using the same fabric and coloration.
also your comment on the grid quilting helped me see that the quilting has a great bit to do with the illusion of blurriness.
dutchrose
At May 1, 2008 at 6:17 AM ,
Judy in Ohio said...
dutchrose, do you realize that if you click on the photo once it enlarges the photo and then if you click on the enlarged photo you get an even better close-up? This enables you to see my hairs on my head in all their glory (LOL) but it also enables you to see the grid I am talking about in great detail.
At May 1, 2008 at 10:42 AM ,
jdb in AZ said...
Are the flowers all hand aplique? Perspiring minds wanna know.
Benartex recently produced some gradated fabric designed by Caryl Bryer Fallert. Just do a web search of www.quiltshops.com and type gradation on the search bar.
SeamSTRESS Sally
At May 1, 2008 at 11:06 AM ,
Judy in Ohio said...
Sally, yes, she used hand appliqued flowers, hand embroidery and she invented a new technique for attaching the shisha mirrors because she did not like the "usual" method of attaching shisha mirrors by overlaying criss-crossed threads over them and then stitching those threads down. (That's how I learned to do shisha mirrors when I earned my Embroiderer's Guild certificate decades ago.) I suspect that she will travel the world teaching her new shisha mirror method .... it certainly looks incredible. She said she has washed this quilt and I found that mind-boggling.
Judy
At May 1, 2008 at 2:21 PM ,
Judy in Ohio said...
Sally, she also said that she put filling material behind some of the applique pieces so the dark fabric would not show through. Since I am not an appliquer that seemed like an obvious thing to do to me but evidently it was "news" to some of the women in the room that she would do that. (Some of the leaves resembled flattened little pillow shapes.)
Judy
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