A portrait quilt—all in colour—of a joyful young couple, using fabric collage against a pieced background, with lots of thread-painting.
Last year, a dear friend entrusted me with the task of making a wedding anniversary gift for her daughter (whom I shall simply call A). It was to be a portrait of A and her husband, to be called, what else, H!
I chose to combine two pictures, taking the gorgeous couple’s faces and figures from one and placing them against a background of a yellow maple tree during fall. The couple had met and fallen in love in Canada, so this seemed only appropriate!
The quilt which turned out to be much more difficult than what I had envisaged. For one, both of my subjects were smiling broadly!
That gorgeous smile! H’s smile Falling in Love portrait quilt
H’ s eyes were behind his glasses and getting that shading right is always a problem.
Details of the thread painting!
H had a delightful dimple, but how do I portray that in a fabric collage? Not to forget getting that beard right.
The full face —with the dimple!
Then there was A’s beautiful long shiny, silky hair with highlights in reds, auburn like the colours of fall around her!
Glowing with happiness!
Let us not forget the clothes and the accessories.
Details of A’s leather jacket with its zipperThe Adidas strap!
The maple tree in the background was not easy!
The maple tree in fall—I appliquéd some branches and leaf cut-outs randomly on the pieced background
I wanted to show some sunlight peeping through the tree, to reflect the joy on this couple’s face.
The sky peeps out from between the yellow leaves.
Despite the long, long hours it took, it was all worth it and I had quite a sense of satisfaction and achievement when it was finally done! ( I do not recall exactly the dimensions of the quilt, but I vaguely remember it was about 32” x 40”)
So I now leave you with a couple of videos of the quilt.
Falling in Love— the gorgeous couple! May they continue to smile together lifetime after lifetime!
I hope A and H love the quilt as much as I enjoyed making it.
I am overwhelmed with emotion when I try to write anything about this portrait of my daughter…I will try to just stick to photos of how it was done!
This photo, so quintessentially my Tana, was my inspiration for the quilt! I started working on it in January 2022, about a year from when she passed on.
Vectorization done on the Vector Q app
The collage came up pretty quickly!
What followed were a couple of trips—one exploring Rajasthan and another one in to Gujarat! Finally got back to working on it, hoping to finish it by her birthday in April!
Sadly, didn’t feel quite done on her birthday. Needed a lot of more quilting to add depth to it!
( Note that I am trying ‘contour quilting’ quilting on it, where the quilting follows the face contours)
This looks better, right? But I don’t like the way some of the lighter threads stand out against the darker areas! Gives it a harsh look! Not for my gentle darling, it wouldn’t do!
I used Inktense pencils to reduce contrast in the in-between areas and darken some stitching lines so that the threads matched the fabric!
Tip: A bit of Cadmium Orange or Burnt Orange does wonders to soften harsh contrasts in portraits, especially with our Indian skin types! It is great for lip-colour too!
A close-up of her smile
See the Inktense at work!!
The hair…
Were those the most beautiful eyes in the world that mirrored the purest soul that ever lived?
I cut out a poncho I had made for her and used it to dress her! The flowers and leaves were also cut out from the poncho.
The quilt was mounted on a ( mounted) canvas, which makes it easy to hang. It now lives in my living room where I can look at her while watching TV…
…or touch her, talk to her, smile at her every time I walk past her!
As I flung this Dreamcatcher at Dusk on my bed today morning, the sun streamed in from the windows, creating its own patterns and textures on the quilt…and I fell in love with it again!
When the sunlight creates its own patterns on my Dreamcatcher! Southward Bound?The Sun-Moon Dreamcatcher from which this quilt, made in the colours of dusk, got its name.Was my least favorite block when being sewed! Everything that could go wrong…did!Love the texture on this one…The Diamond displaying its fireThe tiny hearts quilted into the wedding ring…love is everywhere!The gloriously fiery oranges and reds of the sun set off the cool blues of the evening…and the geese return to the pond to roost.One las look at the sun as it sets…
Wouldn’t you agree it is lovely in the morning sun too?
How I have enjoyed piecing this quilt, originally made by Salinda Rupp in the 1860s! Salinda’s quilt is not all perfect and symmetrical like other quilts of that era! Whimsical blocks and use of whatever scraps she had in hand make this such a lovable creation.
So, here comes Row 9 in my series of posts on my version of Salinda’s quilt, which became popularly known as the Nearly Insane Quilt. The blocks are all set on point, with 7 and 6 blocks in the alternating rows.
The blocks are 6″ square and, except for a few, foundation paper pieced by me. I drafted all the patterns for FPP on the free Quilt Assistant software, based on patterns in Liz Lois’s book, which contains only line drawings of the finished blocks.
Most of the fabric used is Summer Breeze 3, with a fat quarter bundle of matching solids by Moda Fabrics, and the Dutch Garden 2 Collection by Boundless Fabric. I also used a couple FQs in blues and greens plus a jelly roll of yellows I had in my stash.
Nearly Insane Block 53
Number of pieces: 29
Level of Difficulty: Easy
Technique: Foundation paper pieced (FPP)
Nearly Insane Block 54
Number of pieces: 41
Level of Difficulty: Another easy one. Looking at it now, I wish I had used fussy cut flowers for the other two cornerstones in the centre too!
Technique: Foundation paper pieced
Nearly Insane Block 56
Number of pieces: 72
Difficulty Level: Easy! Squares in squares and flying geese become really pretty, with sharp points and also simple to piece when you use foundation paper to piece them! The centre pinwheel is made with regular piecing.
Technique: Foundation paper-piecing and machine -piecing
Nearly Insane Block 55
Number of pieces: 49
Level of Difficulty: I think Salinda used up all her scraps to piece this one! Probably one of the last ones she pieced.
Technique: Foundation paper-pieced.
Nearly Insane Block 57
Number of pieces: 49
Level of Difficulty: Easy, but so pretty! This was one of the first blocks I pieced!
Technique: Foundation paper pieced.
Nearly Insane Block 58
Number of pieces: 48
Level of Difficulty: intermediate, with lots of points to match, unless you do FPP, like I did. This is one of the blocks that makes Salines’s quilt so special! What went on in her mind? Did she decide to just use up all the extra HSTs she had at hand to sew the centre?
Technique: Foundation paper pieced
Nearly Insane Block 59
Nearly Insane Quilt Block 59
Number of pieces: 36
Difficulty Level: Easy. I made the centre 4-patch first and then built the block around it. The corner triangles were foundation paper pieced.
Technique: Machine-piecing and foundation paper-piecing.
Begun in 2012 as a Block-of-the-month by Gay Bomers of Sentimental Stitches and finished in 2021, this quilt taught me almost all I know about quilting!
Last year, my Just Takes 2 Quilt (pattern by Gay Bomers of Sentimental Stitches) finally got quilted, nearly ten years after I began it!
Tina Katwal of The Square Inch did a fabulous job and the quilting is nothing short of exquisite! Here is a gallery of some of my favourite blocks! I included some pictures of the back; zoom in to see the quilting.
Here goes the sun…The lights come on as the sun is ready to go down…What is there not to love?An eight-point star I made the wrong size and added the border to make it up to 6″Framed in yellow!More needleturn…Another Favourite BlockLike that little yellow airplane?Some very well-loved traditional blocks…Yet another pretty one!…from the backTextures!Gorgeous Textures!And intricate blocks…Another look at the back…Lots of points there to matchOne of my top favourites!Sweet!Just love this!I like how the golds brighten up the proceedingsSo proud of this one!This was my first-ever bit of applique!
The colours so remind me of the monsoon evenings at home in India, with the red of the sunset playing hide and seek with the charcoal grey, water-laden clouds! The original, incidentally, is in red and white. Here is the full quilt!
The Just Takes 2 Quilt
Such a sense of achievement finishing an UFO! What have you been doing-creating more UFOs or finishing up the projects in hand?
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