I made a Pixel Portrait Quilt of Tom Hiddleston - Need help finishing
 

Hello there! I am new to the forum and also new to quilting. This quilt top is my first quilt I've ever made. I wanted to do a photorealistic portrait of Tom Hiddleston (the actor who plays Loki in the Thor movies) so after a year of hard work and lots of cutting I finished it. This quilt measures 100 x 100 inches (king size) and is made up of 40,000 1-inch squares which are 1/2" finished. I used 250+ different fabrics of mostly semi-solids and fine patterns in my palette.

However, because this is my first quilt, and the piecework is so dense, I have no idea how to finish it. It's difficult to show through photographs, but the quilt is extremely heavy, and stretches under its own weight when held up. It's unstable while unfinished, so it needs some sort of support.

I've heard suggestions of long-arm quilting, and also not quilting it at all and just stabilizing it and hanging it. Any advice is very welcome.

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If you have any questions about my process, I would be happy to answer them. Although I must warn you, I am self-taught, so I sort of made up words for the terms that everyone else seems to know.

WOW! just wow! Tom never looked so good ;-)

This was your very first quilt?? OMG, I would be committed after that. It is stunning! Don't know how I would stabilize it-if you are not going to quilt, I would guess you would need an iron-on interfacing or something similar to support it. The weight would eventually pull it away from that too though, I think. I believe I would find a way to quilt it. It is gorgeous though. Great job.

OMG!! That is amazing. I don't know who this guy.. but if that is a bunch of little squares to make up his portrait I am seriously impressed! I have no idea how to quilt... I would have been afraid to even start such a project.

Wow - this is absolutely incredible! Truly a masterpiece. I would love to hear about your process.

Just about speechless here! OMG - cannot believe what I am seeing! My first quilt has not been finished (nor seen the light of day - still in the bowels of my closet) in over 40+ years. Huge pieces at that. You are truly an artist.

He played Loki in the Thor / Avengers movies

He was also in the War Horse movie

He's a British actor, so a lot of his stuff isn't hugely popular in North America, he's done lots of BBC stuff and Shakespeare on stage. His latest show was Coriolanus at the Donmar Warehouse (Warning for that image, he is COVERED in fake stage blood. It was a very bloody play, as Shakespeare tends to be)

Seriously, your first quilt?!?!?! That is absolutely amazing!!!

wow, that is really amazing and it looks just like him!!!! Job well done!!!!!

you know those jokes about food being so good you wanna slap your momma...

this quilt makes me want to say expletives because it is beyond amazing!
if this is your first, i can't wait to see what you come up with once you're comfortable with the medium!

wow. just wow.

Absolutely stunning!!

Just amazing and you definately have tremendous talent.

As far as stabilizing for hanging I think you would want to mount it to some backing material that is probably stronger then regular cotton quilting fabric. I would suggest maybe contacting a museum or art gallery type websites to see if they have a suggestion. The International Quilt Study Museum in Lincoln NE comes to mind that they may be able to help.

I saw a quilt made by Don Locke who is/was a dentist that was titled The Supper. Yes, it is a quilt of the Last Supper. He use 1/2 inch squares too and there were 51,816 of them but I don't think this was his first quilt. You can go here http://thesupper.net/ to see and read about it. I saw it in person a number of years ago and could not believe it so I am sure I would feel the same about yours. Perhaps there is some information about how his was quilted on that site. (Linda Taylor of TX quilted it.) Perhaps you could even contact him via that site to ask about it. I know it was hung on some sort of frame when I saw it and it appeared stable but I cannot remember now how it was quilted. It's 183" X 67". Really awesome!!!

Oh WOW That is a masterpiece!!!!
My daughter will go crazy when she sees that she is a huge fan of Tom Hiddleston.
Maybe I had better not show it to her, she will want me to make her one :p

wow, just wow.
amazing job you did there..
you need to send him a picture of it, and maybe he'll visit with you and sign it too.
amazing job you did there

Your quilt is absolutely stunning. I cannot find words. It is truely a masterpiece.

I would sure be interested in how you made it.

I'm sorry that I have no ideas as to how to quilt/stabilize it.

amh

That is so amazing! Forty thousand squares! You did a fantastic job. I'm sorry I can't help with how to quilt or stabilize it, but it is truly impressive. Did you have a computer generated picture that helped with your choice of colors for each pixel, or did you choose? Beautiful work.

I stand here and applaud you for an outstanding, fantastic job!! Absolutely amazing especially since this is your first quilt. I bet in no time at all you will be winning awards at Quilt Shows! You should enter this into a show!! Not sure of how you would stabilize this, just had to tell you how impressive your quilt is!!

Wow! Wow! Wow! Your first quilt? Unbelievable! And welcome to this board.

I used a computer program to render a photo of his face into the fabrics I was using (with a bit of improvisation here and there for creativity)

I did this by cutting a 1-inch sample swatch of all of my fabrics and scanning them into my computer. I saved them in a folder as "001.jpg 002.jpg 003.jpg" etc. This way, the program knew what fabrics I had to use and could generate the pattern based on the parameters I set. It took a few rendering tries, but I finally got a pattern that I liked.

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- odd jpg repeats in the background means the program isn't understanding "black" correctly
- colours are too muddy
- contrast is too sharp at the edge of the face
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- Very grainy
- Don't like the crop of the image, I would have been wasting so much time on boring background
- Shadows on the face are sharp and aren't rendering correctly

These were two early test renders. (they are very shrunk down, the original .JPG images I render are ENORMOUS and I could never upload them to the internet) You can see in both of them the computer was struggling to adapt the colours of the photograph to my fabric swatches. The first one had odd repeats in teh background, and the second came out muddy and grainy. It was just a matter of finding the right source photo with good lighting and contrast and finding the correct settings to render it.

This is what my pattern looks like when zoomed in

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Of course, the pattern I work from is still mcuh larger than this so I can see which swatches I'm using when I create my blocks, but you get the idea. It repeats the same swatch in its proper position, and I follow the pattern.

I would love to be abe to contact him and show him the quilt, but as a busy celebrity (and an international celebrity at that) it seems a wee bit difficult.

Great top. Long arm quilting would be a great idea. I'm thinking it's so heavy because by looking at the back side of it, it seems like your seam allowances are about 1/2"? Or maybe I'm not seeing it correctly. Typically 1/4" is used for less bulk and weight. I would imagine you could slowly press it and use lots of starch to give it body and then sandwich it.

I hope you pick something more difficult for your next one. LOL!!

My seams are all 1/4", and the finished squares are 1/2"
(I just have small hands)

Absolutely spectacular! I would imagine it is very heavy so you would certainly need some supporting backing layers. However this is beyond my knowledge. The iron on interfacing seems like a good start but am guessing you will need more support backing than that. Wish I could be more helpful. I have heard of portrait quilts, and you are truly an artist in fabric!!

Amazing job, and it's astounding that this is your first quilt. I'm no expert, but I think hand quilting would be difficult with all the seams. A good longarmer could do so much to enhance the work you've already done. I think I would have to find one who specializes in this pictoral type of quilt. I'm sure there are some out there. You could start by contacting the one who did the last supper quilt. I would seriously consider doing a mini project to audition a longarmer before I handed them this quilt.

You may also have to use a non-traditional back: something with more substance than standard quilting cotton. You will also have to be careful about batting. The loft of the batting will definitely be a part of your design. If you decide you want little or no loft you may skip batting altogether or just use a piece of flannel or other fabric (this may help stabilize also).

Be sure to post when you have the quilt completed; I'm sure a bunch of us would be interested to see it.

By the way, welcome to the QB.

Darren

"Holy Guacamole, Batman! Tom never looked so good!"

All I can say is WOW! Your first quilt? Nah...can't be! Awesome!!!

I'll let some of the other more experienced quilters address your stabilization/quilting questions. Just had to tell you how much I adore your quilt. (Sorry, I really don't know who Tom is, but OMG, what a quilt!)

Can't wait to see what quilt #2 brings. :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

I made one of my grandson. I took a class and the teacher had the software. I finished it and thought I would throw it away because it looked terrible. I held it up for DH to see and he was wowed! I said really, Im going to trash it. What I discovered was that it needs to be looked at a distance. I said Wow too! I cant imagine making one of someone I dont really know. Tedious but not hard work. Still couldnt do one for a stranger.

Amazing, beautiful, charming, delightful, excellent, fantastic, gorgeous, not enough words and stunning!

Join Twitter and tweet it to him. He may see it, possibly. https://twitter.com/twhiddleston.

He might read some of the Thor message boards. Or his publicist might and would show him.

Also, if I were you, I'd send a picture to your newspaper.

That is an amazing quilt.

This is jaw droppingly amazing! First, welcome to the board, second you are absolutely amazing to have figured out how to do this with your computer then to have the tenacity to see it through.

Do you want this to be a quilt in the traditional sense, ie 3 layers sandwiched and then held together by stitches? It would definitely stabalize this work of art and also make it functional that you could incorporate a sleeve and hang it or actually cuddle up with Mr. Hiddleston.:D

I would definitley consider a longarmer but one who is very good and be prepared to pay the price. But a good longarmer to do this quilt justice will not come cheaply and someone who will do it cheaply is likely not good. You don't state your location but there are LAers capable of doing this wonderful work of art justice all over. I would highly recommend they do the quilting in either silk or invisfil. Both are very fine threads that will sink into the fabric and enhance your work not overtake it. If you google images of portrait quilting you will get some hits of the kind of work I am recommending. Here are a couple links to illustrate what I am talking about. Hopefully they work.

http://stitchesoftime.files.wordpres...ks-quilt-2.jpg


http://www.quiltingdaily.com/cfs-fil...f-portrait.jpg

As others have said, (and I lack experience) there is a real question of batting / filler. The seam allowances are so packed and so even that they pretty much provide a layer on their own. Sorry i can't show you guys in person but teh quilt does feel quite... spongy when held. It has an unusual texture to it.

I also wonder if I would want to have someone sew following the contours of the face, or if I would have them follow the pixels in the ditch. I like the idea of spiralling around the pixels while still contouring a bit.

Also, it would be neat if a quilter could highlight the shakespeare quotes I stamped onto the background.

Adding a layer of batting I think would help to stablize it and if your end goal is to hang this beauty the batting will help it hang straighter. It will also absorb many of the lumps and bumps and spongyness of the seam allowance. A thin batting would work best, i think but something with a bit of body to it. It will of course add to the weight.

I would recommend avoiding ditch stitching the pixels. I think contouring the face would have more impact. Plus the quilter would most likely swirl those pixels anyway as the pixels represent shading and it would give the quilter an opportunity to swap out thread colors that would best blend with the shadows created. But remember a LAQ is working only about 18" away from the work so much of the shading would be lost on him or her in the quilting process. It would probably require marking areas where a change in thread color would have the most impact as well as marking areas that are the nose, cheeks etc. The portrait won't be visible to the quilter once it is on the rack and only 24" or so are exposed at a time.

I was wondering what the letters were in the background. Thanks for saying. Having a quilter highlight that can be done but it may not warrant the cost. the letters are on 1/2" squares, that would be some serious detail work. But the area would have to be quilted in some way.

Awesome work

OMG!! If this is your first quilt I can't wait to see what's coming next!!:sew::wave:

:thud: This is astounding. My hat is off to you!

Are you kidding me?!!! That is amazing! That would be amazing for a very experienced quilter, much less your first top! Big congrats! Sorry that I don't have any advice, but will definitely look forward to seeing more of your work!

There are a zillion seams in this quilt. Quilting will be a challenge for LA. Because I gave away the one
I made I cant remember how I quilted it. I just know it was simple and I dont think I quilted the face. Probably meandering in the background. Mine was a wallhanging. You may get some ideas here http://quiltedphoto.com

First of all props to you for such a challenge. At a quilt show last year I saw a pixel quilt of a lion that was very large like yours. She tied the quilt but did the ties in front and after completing it she realized it needed to be tied with the ties on the back. She had the same problem with the weight and it had even pulled out of shape from hanging at the show. I'm wondering if using an iron-on stabilizer cut in strips and applied in a grid would help control the shape.
P. S. Take the advise of sending this to your local paper and also contact some quilt magazines.

WOW - what an amazing quilt. I would never ever attempt it. My hat's off to you.