Tuesday 16 August 2011

Patchwork Quilt - Complete!!!

Hello there :)

So, my first ever blog: the monster patchwork quilt I just exhibited at Festival of Quilts (UK).
It was my first time at the show and it was utterly faboulous - the range and scope of just what people can do with a quilt is breathtaking, and there's so many pieces to inspire me to get another one of my own underway!!



But some details about mine:
  • Name - 'Billie Joe Armstrong' (named after rock band 'Greenday' frontman)
  • English hand-pieced over paper, entirely hand-sewn together (since this made it portable, it's been dragged around all sorts of places: I have sewn it in motorway traffic jams and in the pub)
  • Each hexagon is the size of a 5 pence piece - about thumbnail-ish
  • Duration - on and off, a year (it was picked up and put down whenever, bearing in mind I'm doing a degree as well!)
  • Size - 2.7m x 1.8m
  • No digital imaging - I didn't run the photo through a Photoshop filter to pixelate it, yep, I did it 'by eye' as you would do the shading on a charcoal drawing
  • 40 different black and white prints were used in total - but no grey! - the rule was they had to be entirely b/w.
  • The only 'pure white' were the few highlighting the end of his nose and inside his eye - everything else had some degree of black print.
  • It started off as 'occupational therapy' following a bad illness: it was the ideal thing to pick up and return to, and I think did more good than all the medication they threw at me...
  • Thank God for daylight bulbs, caffiene, and the thimble.....!

9 comments:

  1. This is truly beautiful...and awesome that you did it by eye! I looked through both your flickr accounts and cant wait to see what you do next...:)

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  2. This was the most amazing quilt I saw at the FOQ! Look forward to seeing more of your work :-)

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  3. An absolutely amazing piece of work Charlotte. I love the fact it's monochrome and all pieced together by hand, that truly is a labour of love, you must have been so pleased with the overall effect, it's stunning.

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  4. This is stunning!!! I cannot believe that this took only a year - you are a super woman.

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  5. i used to run an environmental charity in honor of green day but i'm a disabled veteran and i was in to bad of health to contine leading it. A friend of mine Kat has taken it over and I was wondering if you would be willing to make another one of these or something like it as long as it is green day related, to sell? If you would I will pay and u can mail it directly to Kat the leader of the green day charity in honor of green day from thier fans. Kat would auction it off and donate all proceeds to the NRDC the main environmental charity green day and adrienne armstrong suports.my name is dawn and my email is gdatw.may28.2011@gmail.com

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  6. Dear Charlotte

    This is stunning and original work - I can't begin to imagine the hard work and skill that went into this.

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  7. Wow you really are talented!

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  8. Girl you rock. And you are just starting out. I look forward to where your journey will take you.

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  9. Congrats! I too am a hexie addict and love seeing other great hexie quilts.

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