Party Lights

I’ve never made a quilt about the night.  I do love seeing the stars in a dark sky, but that’s usually in the early morning, when I’m going out to get the newspaper.  Most of the time, when it’s night, I am safely inside! 

I became intrigued by a patch of vines I was seeing almost daily in my neighborhood, and I decided to show them in this quilt.  I took photos in the daytime, and hoped I could translate the image into a night time scene. 

I gathered a dark palette of blues and greens.   I laid out a background, and began placing some dark leaves on it.  Everything was too dark.  I was going to need some light values or there would just not be enough contrast. 

My leaves needed veins.  I pulled out some sticky back foam and built two printing plates, using an old cigar box as my base.  I think I stamped about 42 sets of veins on various shirts and other fabrics.  I ended up using almost every leaf!

I decided to try a twisted strip from a shirt as a vine, adding imaginary flower shapes.  These blossoms developed into a string of party lights!  I added some dotty highlights on the leaves below the lights, and decided to invite some creatures to the party. 

Here I’m building birds in my lap, stitching them to some black heavy netting fabric.  Handwork is what I do during baseball and football games. 

It took quite a while to hand applique all the parts and pieces, but I’m happy with the result.  I used a layer of batting over a layer of felt, so the machine quilting caused the birds and leaves and flowers to puff and be raised from the background. 

I appreciate this opportunity to try something I have never attempted before. 

Party Lights

40 by 30”

Hand applique, machine quilting