The Reveal: Fantasticat

Good morning, my friends. At long last, it's the reveal for my latest art quilt for The Endeavourers art quilt group. The prompt this time around was "collage." Here is the quilt I call "Fantasticat."

When the prompt was selected, I thought I'd make a quilt I've been wanting to make for a long time. But then, I realized I could use it for a different upcoming prompt. Never fear, my friends, you'll see it eventually. Instead, I went in search of something else. Eventually, I came across a photograph I'd saved at least two years before. It was an illustration from the NYTimes by artist and illustrator Angie Wang. 

When I saw her illustration, I knew right away I wanted to make a quilt from it. I wrote to the artist and requested her permission. But then, so much time passed, that I felt it was important to ask again...just to be sure. She responded saying she was "excited about it!" Okay, then. So off I went.

Usually, when I make a quilt like this, I start from the center and make my way outward. For this one, I did just the opposite, starting at the outer edges and making my way inward.

My stash is not heavy with solids, and I was trying to stay fairly true to the colors she'd used.

Even with borders, my quilt ended up at 19 x 19 inches. So you can see that some of the pieces were very, very small.

As I reached the middle, it was hard to decide which pieces went over which. 

Any color could have served as the background "foundation" piece.

When all the color was added, I settled on white as the foundation, peeled the color off my teflon pressing sheet, and fused the whole of it to a white background.

From there I added borders. That inner purple is one of the hand-woven fabrics brought to me from Guatemala by a friend of my son.

And then I quilted it using a microtex needle and monofilament thread.

The outer border was quilted with a variegated thread in a ribbon motif to finish it off.

The quilt back was made using some fabric I'd used in another quilt. The colors were just right, and so that was a lucky find in my stash. I added hanging pockets and a center loop.

For small quilts, I like this method of running a dowel through to keep everything straight and flat.

And now it has a place of honor among the other cats in my stairwell "Mewseum."

I hope you like my quilt. I had so much fun making it. Working with so many bright colors was a delight for the eyes. To see other art quilts from The Endeavourers, click right here.