One more bee, this time for a retiring teacher at school, who has taught for 40 years! She and her husband are both teachers and are retiring together. I had to make her a "Queen Bee" quilt with a self satisfied smile on her face, of course. The flowers are supposed to represent all the children she has nurtured and guided through the years.
I used a stencil painted background and added fused flowers, stems, and the bee. I used layered cheesecloth for the bee's wings fused with Misty Fuse. The faces are created with fabric markers. I fused everything down and then free motion quilted the rest using mostly Sulky rayon threads.
The bee was drawn and painted with fabric markers and Dyna Flow dye/paint. Ironed to set and fused on. I wanted to extend the size so I used a border fabric sort of blended in with the background fabric instead of being starkly contrasty.
Flowers and made with hand dyed fabrics and the bottom strip of background fabric was stenciled with fabric paints, just an experiment, it has some metallic paint on it too.
I like to use a decorative border around the edges, this time I used white because I wanted it to kind of blend in instead of stand out. This border stitching also provides a way of attaching the hanging system on the back, where I place a dowel. It's about 18" x 24". Check out http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/ for Off the Wall Friday!
I really had fun making this one! Shout to all my colleagues, happy summer vacation!
I HAD to stop by and get a closer look at the bee! I saw the thumbnail on Nina's blog. It is just adorable! What a wonderful gift you made.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing through Nina's blog!