Hey Everyone, welcome back to Coffee Talk Saturday.
I had the pleasure of being part of David Taylor’s Pictorial Quilts workshop in Waterloo last weekend. What fun we had in this intensive 3 day class.
Day one starts with transferring the photo selected onto tracing paper. My photo is of Frostie, my cat who passed away last year. The bigger you work the easier it is. My piece is going to be 40 x 44 inches when finished.
Tracing photo onto tracing paper
Another view of the tracing.
A few more lines needed
The next step is to make a huge mess with your fabrics. Now this was very hard for me because I don’t work in a mess very well. In fact I did clean up a couple of times and start over when I needed to change colours. This wasn’t even my worst mess.
Mess of fabric
I started with the eyes because well that just made sense to give her a personality right away and so she could look around the room and keep an eye on all the fabric. Frostie loved fabric – she had to approve each and every piece that came into my studio. Then I added her nose.
Facial features in place
Now this pic looks like the quilt has been quilted but the truth is I have the tracing paper still lying on top of the grey scale photograph so it looks like stitching. I think it looks awesome and am considering doing a whole cloth piece with just the eyes added in colour. The rest would all be done in stitching.
But first I have to learn the technique that David teaches which is hand appliqué – oh boy, hand appliqué – not something I have ever done much of but if I am going to do Frostie justice then I think she has to be done with David’s method of construction from start to finish.
More pieces added – not a fast process considering I did this over 2 days. I need more greys and whites and more peaches and tans and more and more and more. Frostie didn’t have a black ear but the way the photograph was it looks black and we are making a pictorial quilt but I am thinking I might change the fabrics to dark grey since her ear was grey and not black.
More fabrics in place
Here are some of the other pieces that were started in class.
Audrey’s little puppy.
Love the pink bow
Sylvia’s puppy.
Cute as a button
Audrey’s leaf which is one of David’s new leaf patterns soon to be released. Audrey unfortunately left her piece at home Sunday morning – she grabbed the wrong roll and came with a blank piece of tracing paper. Fortunate for her though David had a pattern and I had a whole stack of green fabric.
A maple leaf
And finally Tina’s sand piper.
Sand piper
They are all so different and are all going to be fabulous.
A great class and David is an awesome teacher who shares all kinds of tips and tricks along the way about fabric selection, hand stitching, thread, quilting and of course the all important fabric positioning.
I look forward to finishing my quilt of Frostie – hopefully by 2020.
Happy Quilting!
Looking fantastic can’t wait to see the completed project! I was wondering how you heard about this workshop, I live in Kitchener and would have loved to have attended.
Jen, I took David’s workshop about a year ago (the five day version). I had never done hand applique before, either. You’re going to be shocked how fast it becomes old hat.
Sue, I am looking forward to trying it but just not sure when I am going to get to that part as I still have a lot of pieces that need fabric. I am looking forward to it though.
Hi Jenn,
I love Frosty. Tell me however did you get a photo that big to work from?
Hi Brenda, I had it printed at the printing shop we use in Barrie. Most print shops can print a photo pretty much any size. As long as they have large format printers all is good.
This is an art I long to learn one day. Your cat is beautiful!
Thanks Jan. Sadly Frostie is no longer with me but when I get this quilt made she will be with me everyday. Not sure when it is going to get done though – a very time consuming technique. But gorgeous when completed.
How do you know we’re to put the lines on frosty. How do you go into that step.
Jean, I haven’t made it that far yet. She is still pieces of fabric in a box. The lines that you see in the image are drawn on the paper by David. He did an awesome job with that. I am not sure when this project is going to get worked on let along finished. Happy Quilting
How are you coming on this? I took the class from David in April and am working on my black cat malaki. I’d send you a picture but can’t see how to attach
Cindy, no further progress on my piece. I am actually thinking of doing as a fused piece so that I can it done in this lifetime. Happy Quilting
I’m not understanding how the appliqué is done. Do you transfer the picture to cloth? Or is there an over sheet that is used? I do a lot of art quilt appliqués from. Photos,etc, but just don’t see how the blow up is used for appliqué unless it’s on a background of some sort.
The pieces will be hand appliqued to a piece of fabric after transferring the picture to it for placement of the pieces.