sewing saturday "Open the door"

"Open the door..."  12" X 12"  2/2020

My art quilt group decided to do a year long series/challenge of 12 inch square journal quilts. We can make anything we want, have a theme or just make what reflects our month.

I chose as my words of the year the phrase, "open the door..."  to remind me to take a chance on life.
To interpret that for January's journal quilt, I knew I wanted an open 3-d door, opening to brilliant colors.

I started by googling images of curved doors, and settled on two images. Then comparing them I decided on one as inspiration and began...

I also began choosing fabrics to represent a tile floor, stone wall, and garden

I drew the doors, then used those to cut peltex in that shape, pressed wood like fabric scraps onto them, cut out a wood like fabric "frame" to go around those, made sure I left enough to pull to the back to finish off the edges, then carefully stitched around the raw edges. I used black first, then tan to stitch highlights on one side of each opening.

at each stage I go back to my peltex background cut to 12" to see how the scale is looking, how fabrics look together. I liked the words on this beige fabric but it was too "busy" for the wall so I moved it to the bottom of the piece and put a hand dyed quiet fabric in place for the wall.

To make the arch over the door, I basically closed the doors to get a size and angle and cut it.
To make the shadow under the arch I took tan hand dye strip, sewed wedges into it to make it curve at the right size, pressed both fabrics on "shirt tailor" and shaded in stone blocks with prisma color pencil.

Then I trimmed it to size, and tucked the arch under the doors. Adjusting constantly for angle and proportion and knowing the final stitching would really shade the lines and look like stones.

I like a time to laugh, sew, heal, and a time for keeping...

The blue 'tiles" are silk tie fabric, the columns are built onto peltex so they stand out from the piece too. I did all stitching first, then one line to connect them to the finished work.

The garden fabric is lovely mix of scenes so I had to cut just the right scene to show through the open door.

on the design wall

Some people think it's easy to make small quilts. I think any time you are making something original it takes a lot of decisions, back and forth, trying something and discarding it, tweaking, and perseverance. I don't overworry each stage, letting it unfold to tell a story.

you can just see how the backing was done along the bottom here

to finish this I folded all the fabrics to the back, and created a finished square to superimpose over those raw edges, then stitched right along the edge to seal it.
(I stitched a lot of the components before this step)
Then I did last of the quilting all layers,  inked in the title, date, and artist's signature, and now it's displayed on my easel in the family room.

I plan to use my three flamingos heart drawing as inspiration for February's journal quilt.

hope you enjoyed seeing more of my process, and it encourages you to open the door to new techniques and self expression.

as J. Basford said, "practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes progression"

Linking to
 wendysquiltsandmore peacock party (quilts)
http://frombolttobeauty.blogspot.com/
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