Finishing Uprooted

We left off here yesterday. It's all pieced together.

At this point I stopped taking process photos, I guess. Probably because it was a pretty arduous process. Even though I was generally pleased with the direction, it wasn't as joyful as the creative process usually is. 

Here's the finished piece. You may be able to see that I added a few more yellow vines to balance the composition and bring the eye through to the bottom right corner. I also added the stamped circles in light blue and the red circles suggesting fields of flowers.

I also brought back the central house shape by painting a large white house shape over all the layers in the center of the quilt. It's subtle. I would do it differently next time.

I also added lots of hand embroidery, of course. I also did a ton of free motion quilting, most of which doesn't really show up. But it's an interesting layer.

Here you can see the red flowers, the machine stitching and a bit a of blue circles and the hand embroidery.

I do like the chunky piecing that gives you that random blue square and small blue triangle in the middle of the "house" section.

This piece was created for The Festival of Quilt Art that is a special exhibit at Festival in Houston every year. Last year the theme was Home, so I was especially motivated to enter since "home" and "houses" are a common theme in my work. When it all went wrong and I had to slice it up and put it back together again, it was sort of an incredible metaphor for the many moves I've made in my life. So, Uprooted seemed like a perfect title.

Here I am with Frayed Edges friends Kathy and Sarah with Uprooted in Houston.

Actually, it's still touring with Quilts, Inc. You can see it at Quilt Festival in Chicago at the end of March.