Thursday, June 21, 2012

Blue Corridor

This is a brief description of the processes which created my Blue Corridor quilt recently displayed in the Invitational Masters Section of the Sydney Quilt Show. I was honoured to be included in this group and it forced me to finish what I had started nearly two years earlier and had been named the Blue Monster.

I was inspired by the magnificent architecture of Antonio Gaudi and his Casa Battlo building and the paving tiles in the streets of Barcelona




I bought this coaster of the Pavement design and it was my inspiration for the hexagons
These are the 18 colours used in the quilt. We dyed 2m of each to start with and some more were needed as the quilt progressed.
Some of the screenprinted fabrics and screen printing in progress with my A5 sized thermofax screen which I burned on my Print Gocco.

They lived in plastic bags marked 1-18 once printed and cut up into sheets.
  The original photo inspiration - looking down the corridor in Casa Battlo.
I then tweaked it in Photoshop to get the final image.
I then  used a computer program called Quilted Photo Deluxe to create a graphed layout of the image. It did struggle a bit with the size and the fact I wanted hexagons but we got there in the end and so I printed out the 64 pages of A3 sized paper of layouts. I couldn't go any larger than 1" hexagons or the quilt would have been too large.
I stuck two pages together to work on at a time
The hexagons were laid on Steam a Seam Lite which was placed over the 64 A4 pages of the graphed diagram in order on the design wall. Then the hexagons were cut out and stuck to the sticky surface of the Steam a Seam one page at a time and then pinned to the design wall
When finished, all the pages were joined together and fused onto the wadding. A layer of mushroom coloured tulle covered the whole surface. This was the only colour which worked as white killed the darker shades and dark killed the lighter ones.
I really struggled with the quilting as it was so heavy but once I got my Handiquilter Sweet 16 it was all much easier. I have the wing attachments so could layout the entire quilt on the one surface.

I was really happy with the Aurifil threads I used. I love the range of colours and I started to quilt using the 50wt Mako Cotton but found it too fine (perfect for piecing though) so switched to the 28wt which worked perfectly. I love these threads and the range of colours and the fact that they come in 4 different weights.
Here is some of the quilting.


It took a while to square up and put on a facing finish but I am really pleased with the finished quilt. It was started 18months ago and there were many mistakes and challenges along the way but having learnt those lessons I am already planning the next one.

12 comments:

Mai-Britt Axelsen said...

Thank you so much for showing how this beautiful quilt was constructed. This is exactly how I love a blog post to be.

marjolijn said...

I few weeks ago I visited Casa Batllo and it was so beautiful! Great quilt you have made of it.
gr. Marjolijn

Brigitte in Belgium said...

Great way to work. Love it, though I can understand you called it "Blue Monster" along the proces.

Anonymous said...

Wow - this is fantastic Lisa. Hope I get to see it in real life one day.

MulticoloredPieces said...

Just stumbled upon your very interesting blog. This is an amazing post with a wonderful piece of artwork. Your quilt goes way beyond the photo--much more mysterious and dramatic. Simply gorgeous.
best from Tunisia,
nadia

Aussie Jo said...

Phenomenal!!!

Kt said...

Oh thank the gods for that - I thought you'd hand pieced them!
(It is very, very beautiful!)

Sally said...

All I can say is WOW! Thanks for sharing beginning to end photos

Sue in Melbourne said...

Wow Lisa, this is fantastic thanks for sharing how you did it all. Magnificent work.

Margaret Pratt said...

Your photos are almost identical to the ones I took last year. The 'Blue Corridor' is brilliant and such detailed description of its making was inspiring to read. Will we see it in England one day?
Margaret Pratt

SarahE said...

Thank you for sharing your process...your work is wonderful!

Sarah Ann Smith said...

Thank heavens, it is fused! If that had been hand-pieced....well.... questions about sanity would have arisen LOL! It's beautiful, Lisa! LOVE the Barcelona tiles and the screen designs.