Quilt #5: Vincent's Utopia

I wanted to combine several techniques into one project, and wanted to do something with sky and water. Thus, Vincent's Utopia was born.

BACKGROUND
My husband LOVES to fish. In fact, most of the men in my life loving fishing. I personally cannot stand fishing, but it gets the hubby out of the house for a while. I do, however, love the sunset, clear water and brightly colored fish. I also like hanging out in a boat, but I don't like fishing. Strange, isn't it? Maybe it's because I'm not supposed to talk?

Anyway, I digress.

I decided I wanted to try out fabric painting and combine it with thread painting and beadwork. I found the beautiful fish beads at Wal-Mart, (of all places), so I knew I wanted to do something to feature them. I remembered a challenge in a previous issue of Quilting Arts where readers were supposed to make something that represented their utopia. When I tried to think of mine, my mind went blank. So, I decided to think of what my husband's utopia would be, and the idea was born.











TECHNIQUES
I started with a plain piece of white cotton fabric and sketched the main areas of color directly onto the fabric with a pencil. I then used fabric paint to add the colors. As a last step, I added a shimmery, clear paint over the top of the water to give the glowing effect. After heat-setting the paint, I then thread painted the sky using rayon and poly embroidery threads. I did a very light quilting using a metallic thread in the water to mimic waves. Finally, I hand-sewed the beads to the piece.