Quilt 10 - 2019 'Quilted Quilters'

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The domestic powers that be had been hinting for quite a while, with progressively less subtlety, that it was perhaps time I moved on from always producing the same type of geometric quilts. As I had anyway been pondering the possibilities of taking a photograph, pixelating it and then weaving strips of fabric pixels I decided that now was the moment to embark on a new path.

 

When it came to the fabric I selected the Hoffman 1895 batiks for two reasons. First, I love the fact that there are plenty of different shades in the collection from which to choose and second because I felt that the gentle variations of tone offered within even a small piece of batik would be more suitable to convey the subtle changes of tone found in nature. I was concerned that solids might be just that.

 

Because of my very 20th century attitude to technology, I did not use the computer to select my colours. Instead, and I admit stupidly (next time will be different), I went through pixel by pixel by eye selecting which of the 50 or so colours I had decided to use was most suitable for each one. It was then just a case of working out which pixels were going to belong to the horizontal strips and which to the verticals.

 

I decided upon 1cm finished squares as giving me enough detail to create the image without it ending up enormous whilst at the same time being not too fiddly to handle. Given that the strips were as ever to have turned edges and be fused to the interfacing it was a case of cutting 2 cm gross squares of fabric and turning on the iron.

 

At this stage I wish to offer a tip to my readers. Think very hard before doing a portrait of someone who might see your work in progress and wish to offer helpful suggestions as to you could improve her appearance! Anyway, some 30,000 pieces and several discussions later the weaving was finally finished. As usual with the quilting I favoured straight lines and simply used the direction of the diagonal lines of stitches to differentiate between the people and the background.

 

Click thumbnails on the right to enlarge