leatheflea

LOL! Me either! She owns the a horse boarding and horse camp down the road. Wonderful lady, and her house is the cutest. If you could see her home it will go perfectly. Her bedroom walls look like a light tan leather, she made the effect with paper bags and decopage glue. Its stunning! I mentioned the photo paper to her and well... I didn't know a persons nose could wrinkle like that. She wants applique....

leatheflea

[QUOTE=alisonquilts;6151960]Wow, Toni Whitney is good...

My suggestion for designing your own pattern is to convert one copy of your color photograph into black and white. This will allow you to see shading and color/value shifts that are not as obvious in a color photo (at least not as obvious to me!). I have found if I reduce a photo to black and white, then trace it (over a light box or against a bright window) only marking the most obvious color/value shifts it becomes less overwhelming to build a pattern, and I am sure to include the lines that are most critical to the composition. You can always add detail back in through fabric choice (batiks are awesome, and Bug Fabric has a lot of great textural fabrics for doing fur and foliage), embroidery and quilting.

It sounds like an awesome project - exciting and challenging, and I hope lucrative for you! And I totally agree with retrogirl02's advice about getting customer approval at several stages: a non-quilter can have no idea about how long this project is going to take, and why it is going to (and should) cost a fair bit of gold.

Alison[/QUOTE

Thank you, you've given some wonderful advice. I'll be trying the black and white photo idea. And yes I'm getting paid VERY well for this one. I told her in advance that it wasn't going to be an easy one to make and we've already agreed upon the pot of gold, half in advance.

leatheflea

THanks for the link! Wonderful fabrics! And helps me alot just to see the pictures of the quilts.

leatheflea

There will be no cutting fabric until she okays the sketch that's for sure! I just notice you're in IN also! Big cheery wave from Martinsville!

Rosyhf

This is the way we did this sort of thing in art school. First you need the size of the subject. Next, tape a piece of tracing paper the size of the image on the wall. take a good pic of the subject, animal or human, put the picture into a projector and project the image on the wall onto the paper. You can now trace all the important areas of the subject. Use that tracing to place your applique pieces.

After selecting your fabrics to match your subject, iron on pellon interfacing to the wrong side of the fabric, cut out your patterns from you pattern and fuse them to your background. The background should have a tracing of the subject for placement of the patches.

pdcakm

most photo programs have a setting for printing the photo as a line drawing. once you print it out you will have the templates for the pieces needed.

good luck.

ghostrider

Check out the websites of some of the major pictorial quilt designers...Cynthia England, Caryl Bryer Fallert, Kathy McNeil, and maybe take the Craftsy class to give you some ideas on technique (I know nothing about what the class covers or how good it is).
http://www.craftsy.com/class/Art-Qui...-Techniques/38

There are some good books on the technique as well. I have England's book (hers are pieced, but the drawing step is similar)
http://englanddesign.com/content/pic...ctorial-quilts
and there's one by Marcia Stein, too.
http://books.google.com/books/about/...d=fV5aBzA0vLkC

You could also ask applique, a member here on QB. She does beautiful appliqué of all types. http://www.quiltingboard.com/members...ue-u16436.html

Enjoy the journey!!

sahm4605

ohhh I just had an idea!!! when you are going to get ready to cut out the fabrics trace a pic of the horse and then project it on the wall to the size that you want and then trace it out on the fabric the way that you want it to be. and you can even have the lady look at the fabric with the horse on it with the projector on. this way she can get an idea of what it will look like and size wise. my mom used to do this with paintings and murals. worked wonderfully. But that is if you can get your hands on a projector. I think that we all would love to see a pic of the finished quilt and i would love to see some of the steps that you are taking.

leatheflea

Wow! You all have wonderful ideas! Thank you so much! I'll be sure to keep you posted on this quilt. It won't get underway for about another week or two.

Geri B

Have you ever done this type of work before? It sounds from the questions you are asking that this is something you really are not sure about "how to do". Like Jan I cannot really see just a horse's head on a queen size quilt plus shams with the same likeness! Maybe you should rethink doing this commissioned project