Evening Meal
Predator and prey live in balance, both sustaining and ending life. This whole cloth quilt began as a drawing, was shaped with machine quilting, and brought to life with fabric paints.
I began work on this quilt with a study of water lily pads and a lotus bud. I was working from a photo I had take in 1986 in Japan. I sent my mother a copy of this photos in the 1980s and she kept the framed photo in her bedroom. She also created a mono print with the photo as an inspiration, so working on this piece helped me feel connected to her after she passed. As an avid birder, I love seeing egrets in nearby marshes and on our Sunday morning walks. I made a drawing, used a light box to transfer it onto fabric, stitched the design
You can see that the main forms were drawn in the image, but details like the leaves were stitched in freehand. While some people might see this as tedious, for me it is a meditative process. In some areas I used colored thread to begin to colorize the image. Particularly in areas like the water, lily pads and flowers.
Using Pro Silk fabric paint from ProChem I began painting in the forms. Multiple layers of paints, starting with the lightest colors, works best for shading. If I want the colors to blend together, I apply when wet. If I am looking for distinct line, I let the paint dry in between layers. Stitching the lines first creates a physical stopping point. It is much easier to stitch first and fill in with paint than to paint first and stitch on the exact outside of the forms.
The last and most nerve wracking step was to color the background around the bird. I used a natural sea sponge dipped in grey paint to dab on a mottled texture. This was needed to set off the white bird and make it pop forward. As always, I was working against the clock and was very tired when I did this step. Sometimes you are so tired you lose some of your inhibitions and take risks, in this case, it paid off. This quilt is traveling with the exhibit, Flying High, organized by the Texas Quilt Museum.