H Label Complete...and Farewell til New Year's!

This label is now really and truly completed, and so I will be able to attach this "fancy back" to my quilt now.

As always, you can click on the picture for a closer look.

This is a good time for me to go on a blogging holiday...so I will be back on New Year's Day, 2008!

A blessed and joyful holiday to you all...

H Label Ready to Sew Down

Like most everyone else, I've been diverted from the sewing room with the Holidays upon me...I did get the false back basted on, so am ready to finish putting the label on the pretty back.

First I had to interface the jacquard silk I am using for the pretty back so it wouldn't be so wiggly, and also to prevent the ridges from the basting lines from showing through it once it is in place. In this picture I was just cutting out the interfacing....fusing it on on the ironing board took quite awhile, to get it on there with no bubbles, etc.

The elements are pinned into place, to be whipstitched down. Then I will add the final embroidery to tie it all together.

But no rush on all this...we've got college kids at home, which is such a treat!

Max's girlfriend, Esther, is with us for the week. They look very happy, don't they? Ah, to be 21.
One thing I like about this picture is the way the little portrait I did of Max pulling on a hat--when he was two--is there on the wall just above him. Something poignant about that!

"For Uncle Hal" Quilt Label, continued

I sure feel rusty with a needle and ribbon or thread! (As opposed to beads.)
But the embellishment of the picture is done. I raised the picture up off the surface the same way as the fans...
The writing has been printed up, but I need to get the fancy back all cut out so I can center both parts of the label on it. That's next....

"For Uncle Hal" Quilt Label

The official title is "For Uncle Hal With Love".... there is simply nothing else to call it.

Martha Green said once that crazy quilting reflects how we stitchers are feeling day to day as we work; our stitches are a record of our inner experiences. That has surely been the case for me.

On a longterm project such as this one has been, my deeper feelings and thoughts had to inevitably come into my work, especially because crazy quilting involves so much day to day decision making while in progress. If we are working spontaneously, what we create will be inexorably informed by what is going on with us, whether we are conscious of that or not.
So it was that this quilt evolved to be about my uncle, whom I lost a year and a half ago; about our relationship, who I think he was as a person, how his views of art impacted my own. I have gloried in all of this, too....

So now for the label! This is just the initial work....

The writing will be printed on another piece of fabric and appliqued at the bottom edge of this.

*note* My email is back, btw. Yay!