Several years ago I spent the greater part of October in Pennsylvania, readying my late mother’s home for sale. As you can imagine, this was difficult work both physically and emotionally.
One morning I decided that I needed a day off. I got into Mom’s elderly Oldsmobile and headed out in the general direction of Lake Edinboro, being careful to stick to rural roads.
I was greeted with the most beautiful Autumn displays wherever I looked. As I drove I was also treated to glimpses of rural Pennsylvania that were inspiring and refreshing to the eyes of this California girl.
One shabby old barn in particular caught my attention. My camera got a workout.
I was certain that some of these images would one day find their way into my art
Determine which elements to keep in the photo and which to discard. Convert image to grey scale. Convert photo into an image suitable for making templates for quilt
Assemble fabrics for construction. I decided to use my own hand dyes and was successful with the exception of 2 that I found in my stash of commercial fabric. My goal was to use a lot of saturated brilliant color to offset the aged and washed out look of the barn.
Construct a background – All I needed was some fabric suitable for sky and some greens. Most would end up being covered up.
Make the templates and adhere them to the fabric
Determine the order of sewing down all the elements
Thread Paint the details
Sandwich and quilt the quilt
Finish the Edges
Dealing with Setbacks
Of course I was running late finishing the quilt to meet the submission deadline. So I decided to finish it pillowcase style instead of a traditional binding. Well, I tried, but that didn’t work. The quilting was too dense up to the edges and there was no way this quilt was going to be flat with that kind of a backing and edge treatment.
So I had to remove the pillowcase back and come up with something else. I determined that because the barn itself was shabby and had loose boards (think ‘threads’) all over the place, that a casual zig zag finish would be appropriate.
Of course, in the process of “turning the quilt” I had already clipped the corners. But I decided that was just fine. That little imperfection just added to the theme of this dilapidated barn in the midst of the Autumn beauty.
This quilt is part of this year’s SAQA Art Quilt Auction beginning online September 18, 2015
Guila's Art & Other Assorted Joys 
Thank you Marjorie! I LOVE when I get to that part of an art quilt construction – getting into the zone with my machine and whichever threads tell me they want to play too 🙂 I’m pleased to report that this little quilt went with SAQA to Houston in 2015 and was sold there for $150.00 (as part of the SAQA 2015 fund raising)
This is a beautiful piece. Thank you for sharing your process. I love the thread painting you did on this piece, it really came to life.