rryder

It started out as a fmq doodle on a piece of an old white sheet. I used the sheet for both front and back and sandwiched it with two layers of fusible fleece. Then I doodle-quilted all the organic shapes ( ferny things, etc.) using some vintage star cotton dark brown thread. I left the central part and the border un-quilted as I couldn’t decide what to do with either. Then I began coloring it in with Inktense pencils and fabric medium. It started reminding me of those ancient maps that show coastlines and sea monsters so I toyed with the idea of creating a sailing ship and some dragons to go in it, but wasn't happy with that idea. Plus, it was getting really tiring coloring it with the pencils and I discovered that they were bleeding all the way through to the back. At that point I put it into the UFO pile because I'd already done the fun part (the doodle quilting). It sat for three or four years while I tried to think of a way to handle the central part and the border and also salvage the back.

Then this past Jan. it occurred to me that Storm at Sea would be perfect in the center, so I drew that on using a pencil and quilted over the pencil lines. Then I used sun dyes to dye paint the colors on the storm at sea part of the quilt and finished the Inktense painting around it. The Sun dyes also bled through to the back and created quite a mess there. I had hoped to get it finished by the end of Feb, but still couldn’t decide what to do with the hideously messy back. I finally decided the only way to salvage the back was to add a new black backing over the old one and re-quilt the central storm at sea parts as well as all the large wavy doodled parts using black Isacord thread. It still needed something and I couldn’t decide on a border, so it sat for most of March while I tried do decide what to do with it. Then I pulled out my Lumiere paints and painted the white and some of the lighter blue over the storm at sea central area. It was looking better, so I decided to quilt a border design that would sort of refer back to the central area. Then I painted that with the Lumiere paints. Then I decided that I needed to re-quilt the border to make the black thread color stand out a little more. That was all done by mid March, but I couldn’t decide how I wanted to bind it, so it sat and sat and sat. Finally I decided to go through my stash of large scraps and fortunately, there was a large enough piece of dark batik that was close to the color of the dark parts in the storm at sea center and mimicked the spotted pattern I’d gotten using the Sun dyes. Finished March 31.

Salvaging this UFO quilt was at times a frustrating experience, since solving one problem led to another that when solved created yet another problem to be solved, which created another, etc. However, I ended up with lots of ideas for using all those techniques in other art quilts. I also gained enough technical knowledge and skills in using those materials to be more efficient when I make the next one. Probably.

Rob