Yesterday I finally finished quilting the 3rd abstract piece that I’ve been working on collaboratively with Leisa Rich. I have to admit that I let my mind run away with this one.

This is a pic that Leisa took of it after she had added embroidery.

#3 quilting before

And this is the same piece after I have quilted it.

#3 quilting after

I started with free motion quilted feathers — in metallic thread. CRAZY if you’ve ever sewn with metallic copper thread — but I had the wind at my back that day and it flowed like water onto the surface of the piece. I graduated through copper, purple, blue, and then a gray for the deepest part of the black fabric. I then moved over to the red and brought a flame stitch out of my bag of tricks. Then I moved down into the yellows and whites. I did change to more of a wavy frond for the white — I liked the difference in texture — and some of the yellow blobs were awarded with scallops.  I did revisit the copper thread on the lighter blue fabric over on the right hand side — but I was not lucky on those days and struggled with a lot of broken thread. I moved back into blue thread as soon as the piece was ready for a change.

I love free motion quilting on my Janome. Even sewing on the plastic overlay didn’t cause many problems. My Viking would have given me fits.

I hope Leisa forgives me for putting traditional feathers all over it. It called out for that organic feeling. I’ve never used so many free flowing feathers on a piece in my life. It felt good to step out of contour quilting.

#3 quilting detailI am giving this back to Leisa next week — I think she’s planning some hand embellishment.

We have a curator that approached a local Atlanta gallery about having a two person show of our work — and it looks like we have reached an agreement and the show will go on in late 2015. Time to get busy — I have a lot to do to get ready!