Uniform - Janet Hartje - "Itchy, Itchy, Itchy"

This challenge brought up some long forgotten issues for me.  Sometimes quilting really works like therapy.  If you would like to read more on my thoughts about uniforms (itchy, itchy, itchy) head over to my blog.

Now on to how I made this piece.

Church and uniform kind of go together for me.  So, I knew I wanted to incorporate some part of the church in this quilt.  I sent out a request to friends and family for a photo of our church that would be ok for me to use.  My sister-in-law, Jane came through for me.  She sent several.  One was of the stained glass window on the front of the church.  The others of the church itself.

I knew immediately when I saw the window I had to use it.  I wanted to print on metal, so it would maybe look like a stained glass window.  I hadn't done this in awhile so I was too impatient with my first print.  I didn't flatten the metal enough (I was using a large ice tea can) so the ink smeared when it went through the printer.

I was getting a little short on time at this point so I headed to the store to see if I could find a flat sheet of fairly thin metal.  I found a roll that was light weight so it didn't take long to flatten under a tray with weights on top.

Once it was flat I taped it to a piece of cardstock so the edges wouldn't catch on anything as it went through the printer.  I sanded the metal lightly.  Next I spread clear digital grounds for non-porous surfaces on the metal.  This has to dry overnight and they recommend two coats.

You want to put it through the back of your printer (hopefully you have that option).  From the back it doesn't have to do a flip turn, which would be difficult for the metal.  I really wanted the ink to be vibrant so I set my print quality to the highest setting.  Remembering back to when I printed on metal before I think that is where I goofed.  It took forever to dry!  That is why my post is late.

I fussy cut bricks to make the circle.

Keeping it simple for this small piece I didn't add any other details, just filled in with bricks.  Free motion quilting was added around the bricks to highlight them.  I added a frame of itchy wool in a fabric as close as I could find to my uniform.  I thought about using white for the binding because we wore white blouses but it looked too stark.  I went with black because the guys wore black pants for their uniform.

When I was done I thought it looked a little blah so I found my intense pencils and added some shadows to the brick.  I also found a little cross because, well, it is a church.

Janet Hartje