My focus for the theme is Children's Literature. I will donate my Literature quilts to my local library for permanent display.
My series begins with children's books as the building blocks of reading.
From my elementary school teaching experiences of more than 26 years and reading to my own daughters, I had an extensive list of books (as well a quite a collection!) to picked from in developing this first piece. I think this small quilt will bring the child (and parents) into the quilt and thus its message.
Around or at the reading table -- that is one place children experience books. The center of my quilt is the "wood" table. One of the first books my daughters enjoyed listening to and "reading" was Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt. That is the first block sewn to the table. I built the COURTHOUSE STEPS around the table to indicate the steps of reading, climbing the ladder, and moving down the steps to begin the wonderful journey that reading can provide.
My goal was to use a variety of techniques to put words on the fabric. I took a class with Susan Purney-Mark a few years ago where we explored various media to add LETTERS to our quilted pieces.
These are the marking tools I used in the process:
- Pat the Bunny was printed directly to fabric using my computer printer. I taped the edges of the fabric to paper to feed it into the printer.
- The Bic Mark-It ultra fine points were used to print Little Bear (by Else Holmelund Minarik) and Planting a Rainbow (by Lois Ehlert). I found they bled a bit too much for my liking.
- I found the Pentel ENERGEL pens to be the best to write on fabric. They were used to write Today is Monday (traditional words illustrated by Eric Carle), Harold and the Purple Crayon (by Crockett Johnson) and outlining the letters of The Foot Book (by Dr. Seuss).
- The letters for The Foot Book were painted with Jacquard Textile (Color 111 Sky Blue).
- Plaid latex Craft Paint (20586 Canary Yellow) was used straight from the bottle for Corduroy (by Don Freeman) and Goodnight Moon (by Margaret Wise Brown).
- It was a bit difficult using the paints with the thin brush. The fabric fibers were rough enough to stop an even spread of paint.
- A medium black Jimnie Gel Rollerball by Zebra worked nicely for Winnie the Pooh (by A. A Milne). I did like the way this wrote on the fabric.
- The Velveteen Rabbit (by Margery Williams) was written with a medium Zebra Z-Grip pen I found in my pen basket. I liked the way it rolled on the fabric.
- Strega Nona (by Tomie dePaola) was written with a black ZIG Chisel tip and the gold dots were made with a Krylon 18kt Gold Leafing Pen. This was cool to use and would be interesting to use on a larger area in a quilted project.
- The Magic Fish (by Freya Littledale) was painted using a mixture of Liquitex Soft Body Cadmium Red Light and Cadmium Yellow Deep to try to make a goldfish color. Unfortunately, I had added a bit of Folk Art Extreme Glitter for a shimmer (which did not occur) and it made the Liquitex stiffer and plastic-y.
I was not sure I liked the appearance of the piece when it was only a block. But after layering and quilting in the ditch, it began growing on me. The binding is simply the backing brought around to the front, held down for stitching using 1/4" water soluble basting tape--the best "third hand" I can ask for when working with hemming! Adding this binding, I thought, finished it off very nicely.
Let me and the other readers know what book you remember reading at a young age or reading to a child. Or if you have you ever incorporated words or letters into a quilted piece and how you did that.
Thank you for visiting. Be sure to look at the other members' pieces at their sites below to view their works:
Betty at a Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com
Catherine at Knotted Cotton
Elizabeth at OPQuilt.com
Jennifer at Secondhand Dinosaur
Nancy at Patchwork Breeze (You are here.)
