When I first heard the topic of this challenge I knew I didn't want to do "a snowflake". A search turned up Snowflake the Albino Gorilla. He was captured in Equatorial Guinea by a farmer in 1966. Sadly, all of Snowflakes group were killed during his capture. Snowflake became a popular exhibit at the Barcelona Zoo until his death in 2003 from an unusual form of skin cancer, likely associated with his albinism.
I roughly sketched the face onto some painters canvas and then added various fabrics. The piece was very heavily stitched ( I used at least 12 bobbins of thread). The heavy stitching not surprisingly resulted in a lot of distortion to the quilt which I am still trying to overcome. I steam pressed it which helped a lot and have used quite a thick polyester wadding in an effort to control some of the distortion. I am still working on trying to tame the edges so my quilt is not quite finished yet.
I love it! Love your take on this challenge and you did a fantastic job of putting him in to fabric.
ReplyDeleteLovely lateral thinking to generate the subject for this quilt!
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing!! You can stretch and wet the quilt, don't touch it for a few days and it will be fine.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ineke. I will try wetting and stretching.
DeleteDitto on an amazing piece!!! You have captured this wonderful animal beautifully!!!
ReplyDeleteWow, Amazing, Unique, Beautiful, Love him, I just want to stroke him.
ReplyDeleteWonderful quilt and story to go with it.
ReplyDeleteWow! Love your snowflake.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully executed. A sad story with a very happy ending....your snowflake in memory of.
ReplyDeleteRobyn, i love it! The textures you've created in the facial skin and the hair, it's so realistic, must be worth all those bobbins!
ReplyDeleteIt's brilliant! I use bag batting when I do very, very heavy thread painting on A3 sized works, or if I work on painted fabrics and normal quilt sandwich I find that works too as long as the quilt has an even amount of thread painting across it. I know a lot of others work in the hoop for this sort of work and just move the hoop to go the full area but i'm not so good at that! I love him - he certainly looks like one not to mess with! Pity about his sad fate.
ReplyDeleteThe canvas actually worked beautifully for most of it. My problem was that the stitching got more dense as I went along (the top 1/2).
DeleteLove little Snowflake, he came out rather well didn't he. Did you do this on your sweet 16
ReplyDeleteThanks Denise. He was done on my trusty Janome.
DeleteWell Done!
ReplyDeleteGreat thinking outside the square.
A Snowflake with personality.