Thursday, September 27, 2012

The Red Centre - Month 9

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks! My apologies, but I think you'll find the wait was worth it today. Here are the latest photos of Valerie Giles' Australian Aboriginal version of Sedona Star. Valerie has approached the applique months in a completely different way:

Wombat

I love that background fabric! I asked Valerie how she made these. She tells me that she started with a chalk outline on black fabric, and then fused the patches of Aboriginal fabrics onto that. Isn't it great the way she maintained the continuity of the fabric pattern across the different patches? On the wombat the fused patches were finished with a hand blanket stitch, but on some of the others she did a machine satin stitch with variegated thread:

Koala

Then the black background was embellished by hand with running stitch, back stitch and "many, many French knots" in No. 5 perle cotton. The whole applique was then stitched to the background with a machine satin stitch in black thread.

I really love these, and I think it would be fairly easy to apply this technique to other shapes. Some of the animals are adapted from a book by Julie McKenzie, and some are Valerie's own design.

So here's the whole quilt all the way through Month 9:

The Red Centre

It's looking great. Thanks so much, Valerie, for sharing your work!


Related Posts:

Click here to read last February's post about Valerie's inspiration for her version of Sedona Star




And click here to read about the original Sedona Star designer Sarah Vedeler's inspiration!

6 comments:

  1. Monica, glad to have you back. Thanks so much for the details about Valerie's wonderful applique. The photos here on your blog are so much better and one can really see the detail. I had no idea of all the hand embroidery and without the explanation you provided, would have passed over the photo thinking that the white stitches were actually part of the fabric. I loved that quilt the moment I saw it and now like it even more!

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    1. Thanks Mary Ellen! Valerie has been very helpful and accomodating. It's going to be a great piece.

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  2. Amazing! What I would give for a bit of imagination like that!

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    1. I know! The more I look at the appliques, the more they remind me of constellations of stars. They're very cool.

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  3. these blogs are delightful, and the whole quilt well wow

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I'm told Blogger has been bouncing some comments, so if it happens to you I'm sorry! But the settings look right so I can't explain it. In any case, thanks for reading!

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