March Take it Further - A Bit of Fluff

Had a very productive, creative weekend. On Saturday there were 2 inspiring and thought-provoking talks at the Quilters Guild Region 1 area day followed by a visit to the V&A museum to drool over the wonderful ikats. They reminded me that I have a couple of ikats bought from John Gillow that I should get round to re-hanging - they'll go very well in the 'Parlour'. Today I've been finishing off the stitching on several test pieces and painting them (more on that in another post) and putting the finishing touches to my March 'Take it Further' piece based on a Photoshop altered image of my husband's chest hair. I decided as the theme was concentrating on the small details, that I would zoom in on particular areas , as if with a magnifying glass.

Finished piece ' A bit of Fluff'. The image was printed on cotton poplin treated with 'bubblejetset 2000' as were the close-ups, placed on 'select' weight polyester wadding and free-motion quilted with variegated threads . I cut out out circles from the magnified images and wrapped them round wadding ( polyester 'request' weight from wadding sample pack) and sewed them onto the quilted background using needle-turn applique. Metallic cord was couched down on these areas with zigzag stitch.

Detail of couched threads. The edge of the piece was finished with the same metallic cord.

Overall I was pleased with what I achieved. I learnt from my February challenge and instead of trying to make it up to A4 size, just trimmed it down. The only thing I might have done differently is to leave some areas unquilted to give more variety in texture.