Part two -- The Quilt
The idea of making a Margravate of Azilia map occurred to me several years ago. Since that time, I’ve been thinking and thinking – about how to accomplish the task, about whether I want to devote the time to one project, about whether I can do the phrase justice …
I finally came to the decision, a couple of weeks ago, thanks in part to a prompt from an artist friend, that I’m ready for the challenge. At this point a number of decisions lay ahead of me: What fabric should I use? Linen? Kona-weight cotton? My beloved cotton canvas? What size should I make this thing? How will I construct this bad boy? Should I make it all in one piece, or should I individually make and then piece together the gazillion little squares? How should I create the images? Should I free motion quilt them? Embroider them? Draw them with dye pencils? What about color? Should I include any? Should I stick closely to the look of Sir Montgomery’s map, or should I venture into the wilderness?
Today, one day into the actual making of the quilt, many of those decisions have been made. I decided on cotton canvas, whole cloth (one big piece) for most of the quilt, including all the little squares, with the borders to be constructed separately and added to the central piece after it is completed. I plan to do all the thread sketching, using a fusible stabilizer on the reverse of the fabric, before I sandwich the three layers into a quilt. Then, where will I quilt? I’ll figure that out when the time comes; shouldn’t be too difficult a decision. (Said Cathy at this very early stage in the process.)
I’ll keep you posted as to progress. In the meantime, here’s a photo of today’s work:
My iron is my BFF today, as I’m fusing the stabilizer to the back of the 60” square that will be the central medallion of the quilt. It’ll take three 60” widths of the 20” wide stabilizer to cover the whole piece. Suffice it to say that there has been a LOT of math to get this far, and not all of it has been that simple. I figured and scaled and sketched and figured and scaled and sketched till I got to a size (for the whole quilt) that would work, as well as to a set of numbers that would work -- for the fabric, for the stabilizer, for the machine, and for my brain. At the far end of the table there is the bolt of stabilizer, Pellon Shirtailor 950F, ICYWTK. Thanks to Sara Quattlebaum, a member of my Georgia-South Carolina art quilt group, for hipping me to this product!
After I get all three widths of the stabilizer fused to the back of the fabric, the drawing will begin – and I can’t wait!
Never mind what’s under the needle of my sewing machine up there. That’s another project, much smaller, that I’m finishing up – a special order of the Tennessee River for a customer whose home is there.
Stay tuned.