Lava quilt - part three

Pahoehoe, 2012

Yay! After so many starts, stops, and missteps, my quilt finally began to come together more quickly. Just worrying about one step at a time seemed to be the answer for this project. Most of the time, I like to know several steps down the road, or even all of them, but it just didn't work like that this time. I guess it's a lesson for me...creativity doesn't always follow a plan ;-)

Anyway, I used embroidery floss to match the complementary accent color, and stitched each lava printout to the background fabric that I had painted. I love the way the floss color pulls out the color in both the background and in the shadows of the lava images where I added it.

The painted fabric showed through the thin cotton printouts ever so slightly, so after I'd stitched them in place, I flipped the piece and cut the background fabric out from behind the printouts.

There is no sense in having cut out the background fabric just to add another one that shows through, so I decided to only paint around the edges of the next layer. Yes, I finally decided to stick with a handpainted theme, and forget about trying to make the fabrics I had bought work when they so obviously were not working. I used the same accent color and painting it only cotton batting. I've gotten to be very fond of batting as visible element in some of my quilts.

Layered up and ready to go.

I used nothing but large seed beads, strategically placed, to attach the two fabrics together.

All fabrics squared up, trimmed, and with the backing in place too, ready to stitch together.

I used my customary blanket stitch to add the backing. This quilt, like most of my recent ones, is 100% hand-stitched.

Part one
Part two
Part three

Copyright 2012 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.