Sweet Adelaide, AU (2009)

This  is my second Rose Hughes inspired art quilt. It appears in Rose's second publication EXPLORING EMBELLISHMENTS and leads off the Student Gallery section.

The journey began on a 2008 trip to Australia with my husband, Jon. He took the photo of me with the koala at the Adelaide Wild Animal Sanctuary.  Can you see me in the photo? Look carefully.

At a February  2009 workshop with Rose, I showed her the photo and said it would make a great art quilt. I began working on the leaves and braiding that weekend.

I began by covering a dozen wirer floral stems with Kumihimo braids. Twelve dozen satin stitched individual eucalyptus leaves were next.  Hand needle felted koala toes and claws were a challenge. Last I made a square braid to cover the raw edge of the quilt border and a thick metallic gray braid to outline the koala sections. Next step was to begin the quilt....

Using Rose's Pieced Applique technique, I made the background sections of tree and koala.  The koala was pieced using wool felt. The bark tree was thread painted and the Kumihimo braids were added to cover the raw edges of the koala and tree.

At this point the backing was sewn on, anticipating a great deal of 3D motifs on the front  and the wrap-around raw edge covered by the square Kumihimo braid.  This complicated the needle felting. I ended up using a nearly horizontal technique of stabbing which attached the 3/8" of wool roving fibers to the wool sections.  I did not stab through the backing fabric while felting.

My hand, yes that's me, was sewn and stuffed using an old doll making technique.  Wires were inserted into the fingers and thumb for realistic posing. The press-on French nails completed the look.

The eucalyptus branches and leaves were tackled next. Each branch of the twelve branches as a dozen leaves, individually sewn on and tacked down on the quilt.

The quilt was completed in August 2009, just in time to meet the submission deadline for Rose's book, which was published  in June 2010. Adelaide has an honored place in my gallery.

Thanks, as always, to Rose for her inspiration and encouragement!