Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Allie's Madonna


Allie Aller and I agreed to a swap several months ago.  She made me a CQ, "Barbara's Door", one of her lovely and extra-special house quilts, which I have hanging over my sewing machine for inspiration and mojo.  In exchange, I am making her a Madonna Quilt.

I began with an image from Flor Larios, who sells fabric transfers of some of her painted images.  I love the innocence of the figures in her work, plus the baby Jesus in this picture reminds me of my son Alex when he was a baby.  He had the same round face and heavy black hair.   I framed the image with a vintage napkin, which I strategically cut and pieced in order to get the parts of the rose print that I wanted.

 

I used the left-hand and bottom ribbons in the final composition.  Allie sent me the woven ribbons, and the bottom one, which says "philosophy: believe in miracles" came to me with some wonderful bath salts from my daughter Allie.  I've been saving it for a project like this.  I also found the bit of lace in my stash.  It's the perfect size for a wreath or crown for the Madonna.


I look these pictures with my phone, so they're not so crisp, but I used some textured fabric samples to piece half-square triangles for the outer border.


This is the rough mock-up of the piece.  I must confess that I got stalled for a long time at this stage: there was something I didn't like about the composition, and I couldn't put my finger on it for awhile.  In the meantime, I sewed and ripped out the pieced border in multiple configurations, several times.  Finally, I successfully wrestled it to the ground.  Next I'll show you the final composition and some embellishment.

6 comments:

Susan Elliott said...

It's lovely Barbara. And I like the title too. Looking forward to the mystery revealed...

Debra Dixon said...

Love the bits of bright pink showing around the composition!

Judy S. said...

Lucky Allie, and lucky you! I saw her house piece and it was wonderful. I just love this Madonna image; it will be fun to see the finished piece. THe fabric in the unfinished CQ purse pieces on my blog is from Allie and was fun to work with.

Rian said...

Lovely! It has a contemporary feel to it, which I like.

allie aller said...

I am blown away by this, Barbara. It has everything I love in it..
I do appreciate the time it has taken and I am sorry for your struggles! But oh my is She worth it.
She is going to live right over my nightstand so I can see Her last thing at night when I turn off the light...and She'll be there in the morning first thing when I wake up.
Thank you already!!!

Magpie Sue said...

I'm curious to see what you've ended up doing. I like the yellows in the sawtooth border in this photo. they remind me of stars in the sky or sunshine (the light of Christ perhaps?). I think I would be intimidated to swap work with Allie!

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