I come from a long line of sign writers and am happiest with a brush and some paint! Add
paint to fabric and I get really excited!!

Monday, July 15, 2013

Gabe’s Wall Hanging is Finished!

This project has been a labour of love. I am really enjoying bringing the artwork to life and experimenting with the best way to do that. The fact that the artwork is my son’s is a bonus.

The procedure was labour intensive. Gabe sent me the drawing, I enlarged it via my opaque projector, then outlined and filled it in with Sharpie markers. Then I traced it on Steam a Seam 2numbered and coded all the pieces, cut them out roughly, ironed them onto the backside of the fabrics, and then carefully cut them out.

Then I made a pounce pattern of my original enlarged copy, pounced the pattern on the background, placed all those little pieces and pressed them on. The background we chose was a double dip black cotton I found at http://www.hamelsfabrics.com/. The black is wonderfully deep, but boy, is it hard to get anything to stick to it for long. I assume all that dye and processing is responsible for that.

After that I sewed each individual piece to the background, bringing all the thread ends to the back and tying them off.

Using black batting and a great black/grey/white fabric I found at Connecting Threads for the backing, I loaded in onto my longarm and quilted horizontal lines every 1.5 inches.

Then I spent approximately 15 hours burying threads.

I sewed an invisible binding and two sleeves (one at the top for the hanger and another smaller one at the bottom to house a weight to help it hangs's straight) and now it is packed and ready to be mailed to Gabe who lives in Toronto. He has a place of honor all ready for it to reside in his lovely downtown apartment and I can’t wait to see it hung!























10 comments:

  1. So very neat!! lot of quilting there.

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  2. Yeah, and I forgot to point out that I outlined quilted each little piece on the longarm - hence the numerous threads to bury! But, who remembers how much work they are once we are done, right?! Like having babies...lol

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  3. What a process! It looks lovely and since it's his own art brought to life by his Mom, he'll treasure it even more! What a gift!

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  4. Ohhhhhhhhhh lol you are so right!!

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  5. It's wonderful Jennifer!

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  6. Thanks so much, Linda! He received it today - thank you Canada Post! - and he will shop for a hanger on Saturday!

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  7. Thanks, Lorette! He received it today! He is going to shop for a hanger on Saturday - am imagining he will find something unusual to use.

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  8. It's stunning, Jennifer! It'll be something on the wall !

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  9. Thanks, Holly! We are hoping to work on some more projects together!

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