Making Monet

  My Artist Study project this time is Claude Monet.

I pulled these fabrics from my stash. I firmly believe you should buy fabric when you see if, if you think you'll need it sometime in your life. I would never have found these nowadays as they are almost vintage yet PERFECT for this project.

The project is a 12 inch square quilt inspired by the artist, with an emphasis on texture.
The first photo is the quilt during the thread work decision-making process.
I thought I would share how I decide on threads...

 These are four of my thread cases, arranged by type as that's how I work and think. For this project I wanted metallic, rayons, and  mylar threads to glisten on the surface. I pull the case with that type of thread...

I use these hot wheels cases that open on two sides, and hold many spools of thread. I pulled the metallic container and colors I wanted. I pull more spools than I'll use, and pool the threads on a top, to see how they'll look.

This pile is some of the textural and 3-D items to be used. This time as I approached the challenge, I decided to focus on content, and do a water lily style quilt. I wanted a bridge. After considering how to do the bridge in a way to showcase textures, I decided to make it with trims.
I dug through my trims box, and found this ribbon in a great color mix of brown, gold and purple with a metallic gold thread shot thru. It's see thru and mashed up a bit. I love that.
Then I looked at the holder, and lo and behold! The title of the collection of trims is Bridges.
HA! Isn't that fun!?!
What didn't quite work out were the felted lilies. I thought I would take this roving, and felt in a few colorful threads into lily shapes to add to the piece. Well, they felted beautifully but repelled the added threads. And the colors went very muted and organic, but too blendy for this piece. 

No worries! I'll save them with the rest of the stuff in my studio for another project. I found some weird knitting yarn to use for the lilies instead... it's a furry black wound into a bobble bright yarn. I separated them, and used the colorful bobbles mushed together and it looks subtle but terrific. You'll see tomorrow.

I love words, so I always google quotes by the artists, and actually loved, yep loved, Claude Monet's words.
I printed them onto this fabric prepared for printing. I have some concerns as it says dry clean only. I know I will never wash these stat quilts but what if they get damp and the words smear? I plan to put a quote on the back of the quilt this time, using the blank area as my label. I'll just have to keep 'em dry.

I plan to show you the finished quilt tomorrow and discuss how I approach making a story quilt. I'll have lots of close up pics of the adornments and stitching.
Feels good to finish something doesn't it?

Look here for the finished quilt   CLICK RIGHT HERE FOR MONET

 For more STAT quilts look under (This Label)