FROM PHOTO TO QUILT

I’ve been working on a quilt I designed featuring several different small scenes from my trip to Africa six years ago.  It’s one of those projects that I work on for awhile, then stick in the closet and work on something else. The problem is I am having difficulty thinking of how to free motion quilt each of the small scenes I've made.  I just need to make it a priority and finally complete it.

I’ve taken a picture of one of the many scenes in the quilt to show you how I proceeded from photo to completed project.

PHOTO 1:  The first thing I did was print my color photo in black and white.  Then I used a black felt pen to outline all the zebra’s stripes. 

PHOTO 1

PHOTO 2:   The second thing I did was print another copy only much lighter this time so I was able to see the stripes better.  I use several different art apps on my Ipad to play around with my photos and alter the color, etc., which is what I did to really lighten the black and white.

PHOTO 2

I then placed a piece of white fabric on top of the picture of the zebra and using a light box and a pencil I carefully sketched the zebra and all the stripes onto my piece of fabric.

PHOTO 3:   This is a picture of my completed project.  It was all done with free motion quilting and was painstakingly sewn slowly to achieve the desired look.

PHOTO 3

PHOTO 4:   A closeup of the detail.

PHOTO 4

While I do like how it turned out, I will say that I won’t be doing anything that detailed anytime soon.  But the process I used has worked quite well for simpler designs that I’ve hand embroidered as well as free motion quilted.  

As soon as this quilt is completed I will share it here!