It’s Only a Paper Quilt…

It’s small challenge reveal time again in the ThreadBenders art quilt group. We have a number of these challenges each year to inspire us to try new things, and this time it was really fun to see what came of it.

The rules: The quilt must be made up of at least 25% paper. There needed to be some quilting through the layers and the size: a maximum of 24″ in both directions, or an item that would fit inside a 24″ cube.

All the pieces are posted on our group site. Click here to see the collection. And here’s the story of my quilt:

It began in Japan. A number of us arrived in Tokyo a few days early for our Pieceful Travels tour in January 2020. Cindy arranged for us to take a paper making class at a shop/studio in Tokyo. It was a blast!

And we each walked away with our own piece of handmade paper:

I discovered that paper making was not something I was good at, but I did buy a beautiful piece of paper in their shop, and that was my inspiration for this challenge. I saw a woodland scene in it and so I cut the paper in half, stuck a piece of Press and Seal™ on it, and started sketching some trees and a path over the piece on the right. I like to use a “wipe off marker” so I can adjust the design until I’m happy with it.

Next, I used my final sketch to make trees and a path with fusible web and fabrics. The path is a gradation fabric that added to the depth of the piece.

Once the “woods” was constructed I realized the path needed life, so I found a clip art couple, resized them, and added a bit of romance by fusing them on in fabric too.

I layered everything with a piece of black wool felt and a backing fabric, put it in a hand quilting frame, and stitched it together along the trees and the path with a “big stitch” (long quilting stitches). The quilt then told me embroidered flowers were needed; some close and some further away (I always listen to my quilts).

To finish I decided I wanted to tear the paper away and expose some of the felt around the edges. This required me to tuck a bit of fusible web between the paper and felt all the way around to seal the edges. The outline was quilted and then I was able to tear the excess paper away.

Finished!

I’m very pleased with the results and found working with paper in a quilt can be a lot of fun!

I hope you will visit the ThreadBenders site to see all of the fun works!

*****************

And one more thing…

Back in April I introduced you to my friend Julie (click here to visit that post). I shared about all of her wonderful talents, but sadly I had to end the post with the news that she had recently been diagnosed with cancer. She’s in the midst of chemo now and is facing it with her usual positive attitude. We’ve stayed in touch and pray together regularly. She tells me that she looks forward to my blog posts and, after reading last week’s post about my jewelry wreath, she sent me a photo of a jewelry tree she’d created years ago.

Julie said it holds many memories of her sister and others who’s jewelry she’d inherited. She also said she had plenty of jewelry left for another tree. I think it’s beautiful!

And by the way ~ Julie was in that paper making class with me in Japan. She’s the one in the upper left of the photo at the top of this post. Thanks for sharing your jewelry tree Julie!

This story is destined to continue since last week’s post inspired my mom to go through her jewelry again and she found even more pieces she’s ready to have made into something. Stay tuned!