Wall Hanging - DONE (and soooo pleased)!

If only you could see my face, today it looks even sunnier than my current profile picture! And all because of this:

*edit: this was my profile pic at the time...

October 2014

 
Can you imagine? I am grinning from ear to ear, to be honest. Maybe not the best look, but it does convey my happiness with this one...

I can finally, FINALLY, announce the finishing of a third Item for the City & Guilds course!! (just in case anyone is interested, my finished cushion and bag can be found here and here, respectively) So today I have taken the opportunity of a small break between the showers and have taken it outside for a little photo session:

I have decided to name this one "Vestibule", simply because that's what it is. This wall hanging started more than 6 months ago with a brief ("a wall hanging for on the chimney breast above our stove in our sitting room"), and the search for inspiration (magazines, books, online pictures - anything to give me an idea to work from). In the end I settled for some photographs of a building by Frank Lloyd Wright. I had only a very dark black-and-white photograph, and worked from that to make a design for the hanging.

The design has been drawn, traced, tweaked, retraced, coloured, recoloured... using pencils, colouring pencils, markers, even a little EQ. When I was happy with the picture, the whole design was drawn out at full size. Each piece then was traced individually onto steam-a-seam, which was used to temporarily "stick" the fabric pieces in place until I was sure which fabric should go where.
The hardest part was the placement of the fabrics to create a good three-dimensional picture, which led to a crisis for a while, but in the end I am really happy with how it has worked out.

When the fabrics were all in place, machine quilting was used to attach the fabrics to the background at the same time as adding colour and texture to the piece. Flanges were added to peek out from behind some edges, and different coloured threads added further details to the picture.

I am sure not everyone would like to have such a striking picture above their fireplace, but I am happy to drill a couple of holes in the right places to hang it, and be able to look at it every time I sit in front of my cosy stove this winter. And to imagine what might be found behind that door at the other end of the vestibule...

Stats:
"Vestibule" -  35" x 39¼"
- fabrics: cotton, most from Soho Chic by Sandy Gervais for Moda, and a few others of unknown (to me) origin
- wadding: cotton
- threads: large variety (cotton and polyester (gasp!?); 50wt, 30wt, and 12wt; in yellow, purple, brown, bright green, blue-green, cream, and probably some more...)
- quilting: a variety of stitches using my walking foot; and small areas of free motion meandering
- edges: faced (no binding)

Finally, in it's full glory:

ta daaa!!

STATs:

size - 34½" x 39½"

materials - patchwork cottons from Soho Chic by Sandy Gervais for Moda, plus one lime fabric from elsewhere; cotton wadding; cotton, silk and polyester threads in different weights and colours

techniques - raw edge machine appliqué, flanges, faced edging, machine quilting

And now on to the next one...

- see more of my City & Guilds work at the tab above -

 

Sandra

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