Breaking Traditions "Home"

Since tomorrow is the postmark deadline for submissions to the Breaking Traditions 2009 Exhibit, I finished and packed up my 12"x12" quilt...today. Just under the wire as usual. I've been working on my tea-picker portrait so much, that I almost completely forgot about the Breaking Traditions quilt. The idea for it has been in my head for months, but I had never put it together. I finally confessed this to my husband, Tom, who had noticed I was getting crabbier and crabbier.

So, for his own self-preservation, as it's not a pretty sight when I am moody, he helped me make plan for completing this quilt. The motivation for me, besides wanting to contribute to a worthy cause and having my work shown at a big show, was the threat of having to cook for him for a week (!) if I did not reach my daily goals. It worked, because each day I made sure I finished my task! I'll do anything so I don't have to cook. Anything.

The theme this year was "Home", and since the exhibit is benefit ting A Place to Bark, an animal shelter, my "home" project had to include my dogs! It started with three pictures I had taken over the last couple months. I printed them on silk, and fused them onto a background made up of green grass fabric, and blue sky fabric. I sandwiched it, then did some thread painting and free-motion quilting. The result was a silly little quilt called "Beau and Georgie's Excellent Adventure: Up on the Woof". It features the dogs ON our house with pics of some of my garden flowers around the house; hydrangeas, clematis and violets.

I also made a tree out of some batiks and did some thread painting on the dogs, the trees and the flowers. I am generally happy with it. I am disappointed that the shadow of the green fabric can be seen behind the house, but this is the first time I've printed on silk. And I did that because my (old crappy) printer has a very hard time with the printable cotton, and since I didn't have time to run and do my printing at the office, I used silk. I love it--it prints so easily and nicely, but it has its drawbacks, as I learned.

I've included some detail pics, too. I enjoyed doing the thread work--I will be doing that a LOT in the future.