Welcome to my studio!

One of the most important things I've found when having this much fabric is to keep it organized. I have shelves organizing fabric yardage & containers neatly holding fabric that I've cut into cut into strips for edging. There are drawers that organize scraps of fabric and thread by color.

This is a shot of "The Great Wall of Fabric". I try to keep it organized mostly by color groups - although some things have separate sections ~ like water, feather prints, stones and pebbles, celestial prints&133; It's great to be able to locate a shade or a motif quickly.

(You can also see my Troll family up top, watching over things...)

The Background

First, I create a landscape of sorts from cotton print fabrics. This is layered on top of a piece of plain cotton fabric and a piece of batting. The pieces are held in place lightly with dabs of glue.

The Faerie!

Next, I sketch out a faerie to place in my landscape...

I ink in the sketch, finalizing the lines, and trace the body onto a piece of clear plastic template (might want to use it again...)

Then I select fabric that compliments my landscape, trace the body onto it, and cut it out.

(I don't always do this - sometimes I just wing it!)

I begin layering fabrics behind the edges of the body to make it stand out from the landscape. You can kind of see the dark outline of fabric around her body here...

Wings! (I love this part!)

I start with a small shape in the center of each wing, then glueing, layering, ironing, and cutting, I add on... (the embroidering later adds the final touches to the wings)

The hair is created in a similar way.

Placement

The pieces are assembled, the placement is modified until I'm happy, then I use a little more glue to hold things in place. Often I add more things to the landscape, like flowers and foliage and such. I also add stars to the sky, and touch up the landscape with bits of fabric.

I added flowers around this faerie's wrists, waist and ankles.

Let the Sewing Begin!

The next step is the sewing machine! It usually takes well over 2 hours (I've gone up to 5, I think, so far) to quilt a piece this size, using free-motion embroidery (which is like drawing while holding the pen still and moving the paper...)

Now she's all quilted! Wow - I lost track of the time - but it was 3, 4? maybe 5 hours? More? This picture is only a 8½" x 11" section. The whole piece is about 18" x 22". It will, of course, be larger when the fabric frame is added!

Click the picture
to see a larger shot of
all that quilting! ----->

The Back!

This part always looks so cool - this is the back! It's almost a shame to hang it facing the wall - but sometimes it can be a real mess with all those thread tails and whatnot. I have however developed a new way to put the faric frame on my quilts so that the back is still visible! (I used to cover it up)

At Last! Fini!!

The piece then gets a fabric frame with a channel at the back to insert a rod for hanging the quilt... (this particular quilt got tabs at the top - I used to use that technique)

...and viola! Here she is!
"The Wandering Faerie"
(Click picture for quilting detail...)