Today I finished my first collage quilt, a small art quilt of a lion’s head.  The image is made entirely of cloth and then is sandwiched like a regular quilt and stitched together.

The finished size of the mini quilt is 12×15 inches. That includes the black border I put around it.

Below are some pictures of the stages of creation. On the left is the start of the image. The next is after all the elements are placed and fastened down but before the quilting is done.

   

After the layers of the quilt were stitched together I tried doing something called thread painting. This technique uses lines of stitching to add texture and details to an art quilt.

The detail here of the area around the nose shows the lines of stitching. This is my first attempt at this technique. I need to do a lot more practicing!

Temari Ball – Black and White

This ball is stitched with the traditional chrysanthemum motif, one on each side. Each flower is made with black and white Perle cotton #5 thread. However the result is different on each side because on one I started with black and finished with white and on the other side I started with white and finished with black.

The band around the middle of the ball between the two flowers is called an obi (sash). I got a nice three-D effect by again varying the order of the two colours.

Mystery Quilt

I have made no progress on the Mystery quilt because I have been focused on creating my first collage art quilt. Another clue came out today and I haven’t had time to even do one of the pieces to try it out. But now that the lion is done I can get serious about catching up on the Mystery quilt clues! Next Tuesday I will show you the progress I have made.