Here is another one of Roxanne Barbieri’s wonderful quilt designs: her Angel Quilt!
I quilt these special quilts differently than I would quilt a block-based quilt. With a block-based quilt, I might do some intial SID (stitch-in-the -ditch) around the blocks and borders, then decide upon a block quilt design, a sashing design, and a border design. With a pictorial quilt such as this Angel quilt, each component receives a special texture to highlight the specific quality of the design. I also change thread colors often; I prefer to use solid color thread and blend my color with the fabric. My personal preference is to highlight only the texture of my quilting, rather than showcase the quilting with a contrasting thread color; I accomplish this by choosing a thread color that won’t jump out at the viewer. For this reason, I rarely choose a variegated thread.
Back to the quilting texture! The angel wings were big and floaty. They are (to my mind) a very “girly” element for the angel (if I were an angel– quit laughing, I could so be an angel!– anyway, if I were an angel, I would want beautiful wings. And fabulous shoes.) So they got girly texture, in the form of small, feathered, curly vines:
For the “Angels are secret friends watching over us” sign, I switched to a brown thread and stitched a wood texure:
The bird feeder was whimsical, so I quilted some fun textures there:
I quilted some bird-like lines in the blackbirds, and gave her girly floral dress an empire waist with a horizontal vine, with flowers quilted in the bottom “skirt”.
I thought it was interesting to see that Roxanne’s quilt label was a photo transfer of her very neat sewing room. She must have an Angel that likes to tidy up as her secret friend watching over her!
5 Comments
June 24, 2009 at 8:00 am
Well you told me that I’d be bowled over at Roxanne’s next quilt (after the fishing one) and boy are your right. I hope to meet Roxanne someday or at least make one quilt in her style. Thanks for sharing.
June 24, 2009 at 8:51 am
What a wonderful, whimsical quilt! I think the quilting you chose to do is just perfect for each element of the quilt!
June 25, 2009 at 8:20 am
Love the quilt and the quilting! (wouldn’t want to wear the shoes!)
June 27, 2009 at 7:08 am
I love the way you have enhanced this piece with your delightful quilting. You have had some great whimsical, original pieces to work on recently!
June 29, 2009 at 8:45 am
Wonderful quilting on this Susan! Good choices for the thread and quilt design, too.