First Commission…Goes to Market!

At this point I had accomplished a few thread paintings and I was getting the hang of the process. In the fall of 2014, I took a bag workshop at my local quilt shop with Sara Lawson (@sewsweetness). Throughout the class I was very eager to chat with her about the quilting industry and my thread paintings. I showed her the red barn and the Heather Ross gnome I thread painted.

She said that she was having her own booth at Quilt Market (which was the next month) representing her new fabric collection, Fantasia, and she needed something eye-catching for her booth. She asked if I would thread paint her a mini quilt to hang in her booth. I of course agreed! I was so excited and in shock that something I created would be at Quilt Market, how cool is that!

For her thread painting I wanted to capture a couple of different designs from her collection, I knew I had to include the unicorn and a few different mushrooms. By the time I had all the materials I needed, I had only about two weeks to complete the entire mini…whew. I first drew out the designs on the fabric with a pencil and then began thread painting.

After all the thread paintings were complete I had to decide how to piece the mini to showcase the designs and also show interest. So I determined to keep it simple, I pieced a simple light pink (Art Gallery solid coordinate to Fantasia) border around each mushroom to get them to same height as the unicorn.

But I still needed a colorful border to bring together all the colors in her collection, so I decided on a candy cane style top and bottom border using all the coordinating Art Gallery solids!

Now onto the quilting, first I had to micro stipple around each thread painting to take up the puckers. I stitched in the ditch around the solid borders. My favorite quilting design of the mini quilt was the Fantasia logo. I drew out the Fantasia design in the top gray border and wanted to create a trapunto effect around the letters. To do this I once again, micro stippled around the letters, leaving the letters un-quilted so they would have a 3-D look. And just in case this idea really didn’t show up I chose to quilt on the gray in a soft pink (it still wasn’t really visible from afar). That’s ok because I knew it was there! 🙂

And with one night to spare before I had to ship it out…I hand bound it (Thanks mom @kbcjohn for the help) and attached the personalized label on the back.

Now it was on its journey to Sara at her hotel for Quilt Market. I was so eager for her reaction. Here are a few photos taken by Sara @sewsweetness.

Oh and Art Gallery posted my thread painting in their look book for Fantasia on Instagram… how awesome is that!!