Pieced and Face Stitched

Enough already, I know I don't live in Boston,  But enough is enough, everyday they cancel school due to snow is another day of my summer vacation spent in the classroom.

Picking out the prominent features really made me concentrate on the shape of the eyes, nose and mouth, as well as the major shapes caused by shadows in the hair.

I decided to really concentrate on the negative space within the face.  I scanned many websites studying portraits and the quilting patterns stitched on the faces.  I also decided to outline the edge of the nose in black thread.  My first thinking was to do the shading of the nose in black Inktense black pencil, but now I will go back and thread paint over it.  Since this was done in the style of pop art, I decided to do the pattern above.  My major regret is I now wished I had done the rows of stitching closer together. 

You Know the Old Saying

You know the old saying, "Watch what you post on Facebook, you never know where your posting will end up."  Well, that is definitely the case for my next wall-hanging.  I did get permission from her father before I posted her picture on my blog.

One of my personal goals this year is to explore faces and portraits.  I have always wanted to draw, paint, quilt a portrait, but have always shied away from the challenge.  This is the year of the portrait.  Then I got that once in a while brilliant idea and thought why not do Andy Warhol pop art style portraits to begin this quest.  In doing so, I need to mainly concentrate on the prominent facial features not the coloring, shading, etc.

I changed the portrait to black and white, then I applied the pencil sketch filter (check out my tutorial page).  This was too light....

so I applied another filter and make it darker. I now have options, options are good.

 

Yeah! It is Done!

 

 

 Hard work and perseverance is what it took this week to complete my wall hanging. 

 

 

This is my first "playful" wall-hanging.  Working with the lame and Mylar wrapping paper proved to be a needed challenge.  I do like the way the sunglasses reflect the light adding a dimension to the overall composition.  Looking at the back cushion of the chair, I wonder now if I should have outlined it with the maroon material. 

Still Quilting

 

 

 

 

I spent most of the week visiting my Uncle in Florida helping him to celebrate his 90th birthday.  What a milestone!  If I am so lucky to live that long, I just hope I can still quilt.  I returned early on Wednesday and I bet you can guess what I did!

 

 

 

The stitching, binding and pocket rod hopefully will get finished this week.

Quilting

The only good thing about cold weather.....it's a good excuse to do nothing but sew.

I used every spare moment this week to spend time at my sewing machine.  Every shade of purple on the dog has a different free motion circular style stitch.  I thought in order not to over do the different styles of stitching on the dog, I would at least keep a pattern of curves and circles.