We had a whole fabric shop to pick from for our background fabric. I found a dark green, oriental-looking print that had little gold crickets on it that seemed just right. We didn’t finish our pieces in class, so I took it home, and while I was thinking about it, I remembered a Victorian wooden frame that we’ve had sitting around for a number of years, waiting for inspiration. I decided the roses would be a what it needed. I had to rearrange them a little, but that was no problem, since they were held to the background with little dots of Elmer’s glue.
The problem was the frame, it had apparently been painted green and stripped, and in the process, a couple pieces of the attached carving had broken. I tried a number of different processes to repair it, and finally resorted to old-fashioned wood putty. I shaped it as well as I could, then after it dried, I used a Dremel tool to carve it. After the whole frame was stained, the repair is hardly noticeable.
With Phil Beaver’s technique, the applique and quilting are done as one process. I had a whole collection of Maidera machine embroidery threads. He adds a lot of texture with the quilting, so I tried to give the impression of the curving petals. The quilting was a lot of fun, and didn’t take as long as I thought it might. I have a Fabric Mover for my Pfaff machine, which makes this kind of detail work easy.The final step was to cut a piece of Fome-core to fit the frame, then to slipcover it with the quilted piece and a backing. That was tacked in place, then I covered the back with a lovely dark brown suede-like fabric. I am going to try to put an image of the finished piece and a closeup of the quilting in this post, but I’m not sure where they will appear.
Jeannie, - what a lovely quilted picture! Thank you for sharing your work, it is very inspiring. Now I want to go looking for my folders of rose photos again