Quilting Pictures

A while ago, Jill found this book about quilting pictures.  You're basically making a fabric collage, except it looks nicer than the paper collages you (or at least, I) made way back when.  Originally, Jill, my mom, and I were all going to work on it together.  Jill made this cool beta fish design, the three of us shopped for the fabric, we got started, and somehow it ended up being my project alone.  

My goodness, it took forever.  Part of the problem was that I had decided to do a design with loads of skinny sections.  Don't these look fun to cut out at each step? Time consuming, but worth it.  

My two biggest problems are ones that I'd have no matter what I was working on.  I like quilting, but I usually only sew when the once-a-month quilt group meets.  I also seem to have some curse that causes my sewing machine to have tension issues or otherwise hate me.  I might spend so much time fixing tension issues and taking out unstable seams that when it's time to go home from my quilt group, I'm just a few stitches past where I started.

But now the fish done, and it looks pretty cool, if I do say so myself.  The back looks almost as good as the front.  It looks like a whole cloth quilt.  If you’re unfamiliar with that, it’s exactly what it sounds like.  You take your fabric, don’t cut it up, lay it on your batting and backing, and quilt a design on it.  Bind and done.  

Even though this was a lot of work, it was fun to make, and I love the end result.  It’s nice that it’s not as precise as most sewing is.  Wobbly stitching?  Do it a few more times, and people will think you meant to make it wobble.  Or ignore it, and no one will care, even if they look up close.  My mom and sister and I bought new fabric for this, but it would be a great way to use up scraps, maybe even funky patterns that you hope were in style when you bought them but now would make a fashionista faint with fright.  In short, it’s fun, forgiving, and you should give it a try.  You just might want to pick a simpler design than my beta fish.

Would you like a tutorial about how to quilt your own pictures?