The Fourth and Last Quilt

This is the last of four quilts that my church, St. John Lutheran, commissioned from me for the new Sunday School wing. The process for this quilt began as the others. I selected several images from a coloring book. Four were selected by the Sunday School Committee. I scanned the images into the computer. Sometimes I brought them into Photoshop to play with colors I might be interested in using. Then I down loaded my pallette and went to my stash and selected colors. I reference the color wheel sometimes when I'm at this stage. I know. I know. Some of you are falling off your chairs. I will use anything that will inspire me to make what I consider to be a good choice. Why complicate your life?

Anyway, so then I bring these images to the printer (like Kinko's) and have them print the images in a large format. I have printed sections out on my 8.5 x 11 printer but that is agonizing and not accurate. I have the printers make two copies. One I can write on, one I keep for pattern development. Its a good idea to have one be a mirror image.

Back home, I grab some Wonder-Under and start making tracing my pattern. I tweek things all the time. Don't be afraid to do this! Be loose! Did you ever hear of a happy mistake? If your perfect all the time you won't cross those borders into "what if" land. Next grab the iron and start gluing.

I havn't decided if it is better to set the final product on directly on the batting or to set it on a layer of muslin. Both have their drawbacks.

And this is how far I am today.

Its pinned and ready for quilting. Now....the quilting......

I tend to wait until I am at this point with type of quilt to figure out what I'm going to do. Of course, I look at tons of books and magazines that I have collected for inspiration. Then I print out an outline (8.5 x 11) of the quilt and start drawing on top of it. This may not be the final product. But I'm getting there......