One of the favorite things that Michael and I enjoy when we are traveling is to walk hand-in-hand and enjoy the sights. This is the inspiration photo…..
I started out by tinting the photo to Black & white and enhancing the red in my shirt…..
Next, I needed something to go around the photo, and a “Trip Around the World” block seemed appropriate…..
But, it wasn’t quite big enough so I needed to add a border……or two!!
I love this quote which has been attributed to many different people, but my favorite rendition of it is this…..
That saying proved to be the perfect finish to this fun quilt…..
The next quilt in my “Travel Log Quilt” series is one that was made from a trip that my daughter, Jenny, took back in 2006. Now I know that this isn’t MY travel quilt, but I had been to the same area LONG before digital cameras were a thing, so I claim it anyway.
She was a Freshman at University of Georgia and decided to do “May-mester” (a short 2 week term) in Australia. Since she had been born in Australia this seemed to be the most natural thing for her to do!! She had a wonderful time there, studying the flora and fauna of such an amazing continent.
Probably her favorite part of the trip was time spent on the ocean in the North-eastern state of Queensland. She enjoyed snorkeling, sky-diving (NOT part of the course) and watching the sea turtles as they made their way from the nest to their home in the ocean.
When she returned with photos from the trip, I was enamored with this picture of a gorgeous sea turtle floating along in the ocean………
….and also these photos of other undersea creatures……
At the time I was doing a lot of work with photos in quilts and wanted to do something that mixed the photos and fabric. I started out by setting up a “new” photo that placed the turtle slightly off-center with lots of ocean surrounding……
Each of the lines in the photo represents a small portion of the ocean that I “grabbed” from somewhere else in the photo. It looks choppy here, but the final printing looked great. I printed this photo on fabric using “Printed Treasures” fabric and then started adding”stuff to it.
The three yellow and black fish are all the same photo but just printed in different sizes. They are appliqued to the ocean…..
The reef picture was also printed but I placed it over some fabrics that had a similar look…..
Back then I didn’t have the confidence to free-hand the thread corals but drew them on a wash-out stabilizer, sewed them in place, and then washed the stabilizer away.
The other small fish were simply cut out and appliqued in place without any detail added. I really wanted to give the impression of a school of fish swimming along……
Finally, I added a fabric “coral” and then thread painted over it…..
I was SO pleased with the final quilt…..
“No Barriers”
I loved mixing the photo prints, fabrics and thread work, and I loved the way the quilt spilled out into the border!!
But mostly, I love that it is a fun reminder of Jenny’s trip to Australia……
For my 3rd Travel Log Quilt, we have to travel to gay Paree!! In July of 2004, Michael spent a month in Germany teaching at one of the universities. We decided that the kids (Brian age 19 and Jenny age 17) and I would meet up with him in Paris for a week of sightseeing.
The trip was a lot of fun as we viewed many of the art galleries, especially enjoying the smaller galleries like the Monet, Rodin and Picasso. Of course, the biggest pull for the trip was the magnificent Eiffel Tower.
While on top of the tower we took lots of photos of the Paris skyline, enjoying the slightly hazy views….
After we were back at ground level, I took this photo of Jenny viewing the tower…..
A couple of years later, I decided that I wanted to make a quilt that was a mixture of photographs and fabric collage. This was the resulting quilt……
Everything above the trees was done with photos printed on fabric but the trees and everything below is from fabric.
Now, I like the memory behind this quilt, but I did NOT do the portrait of Jenny correctly. Her body shape simply isn’t right.
A few years ago I tried to fix it…..
….but it still isn’t right.
The problem is that I LOVE her hair but everything below that just doesn’t work.
As I have written this post, I am wondering about cutting off the quilt at her shoulders….
