Saturday, September 27, 2008

Last Elvis Sighting

I'm finally finished with this month's challenge.  I used the color palette Sharon selected and made a small quilt using Elvis Presley as the theme.  Here's Sharon's inspiration piece; the five focus colors included two shades of blue and gold, lavender and brown.



I posted a photo of the front of the quilt earlier in the month.  Here's a close up of one of the tropical stamp appliques I used to fill in some blank spaces.  



The back of the quilt was a single fabric imprinted with a "Blue Hawaii" movie poster.  I quilted around each of the blocks on the front of the quilt.  Here's some detail on the quilting as it appears on the back.  (Stop gagging, all you experienced quilters.  This is only my second try at this medium.)


Of course, I had a fabric mishap.  I nicked a small hole in the movie poster, so in order to cover it up (yes, I made it worse trying to fix it before I stumbled across the method I used for the repair), I appliqued a few more stamps on the back.  Here's the one that's serving as the cover-up for the hole.


I'm big on do-overs.  You know, those post-project analyses where you perseverate on all the things you did wrong or could have done better.  So, just in case any of you are thinking about replicating any part of this project, here's my Elvis quilt review:
  1. I'd use just one batik fabric for the front of the quilt and let the photos speak for themselves.  I'd keep the stamps, though, partly because I like the effect and partly because I really loved appliqueing the stamps.
  2. I'd applique after all the quilting was completed.  Quilting around each stamp on the front of the quilt almost made me leap screaming from the roof of my condo.
  3. I'd choose a plain fabric for the back so that the quilting wouldn't be so obvious (stitching over Elvis' body parts I think is distracting to the overall effect of the poster back.)
  4. I'd put a hanging pocket on it.  There is always that remote possibility that I might be invited to display the quilt at a show - yeah, right!  Maybe after my fiftieth quilt, if I live that long.
And if anyone can tell me how to turn off this annoying underlining, I'd really appreciate it.

2 comments:

Jane said...

Glad I'm not the only one that gets holes in places they have no right to be. Love your solution

Jane said...

Can't help you with the underlining... has to be something in the HTML coding... but none the less, Elvis lives and I love what you've done with him. There's always something in retrospect after a project isn't there???