Rick Loudermilk

Who you say??  Rick Loudermilk is one of the artists our fiber group selected for us to use as inspiration for creating an art quilt.  A few weeks ago I posted  a quilt I started based on Rick's inspiration.  You can see it here.   This is a closeup of the piece.

Our fiber group decided to use Rick for creating a quilt that we'd attach to a gallery wrapped canvas (I've shown some of my pieces using this process on my blog).  Well, I just wasn't able to get the stitching right on the piece so it will turn into an end table topper! I decided to start over!



 Here are a few of Rick's paintings I wanted to use as inspiration.



So off to my fabric stash to see what I could find.

I decided I liked the oranges and greens in his pieces so that's where I started.




I found a commercial piece I purchased quite some time ago as my base and I started to draw and stitch circles.

For some reason, ok...blame it on old age!, I forgot about doing my normal circle stitching and ended up just free motion stitching around the circles.  I can't even stitch a straight line let alone follow a circle line I've drawn.  Geeezzzzz

Any way, I finished with some free motion quilting and then I cut a hole in the piece so you'll see the canvas through it.  Keep in mind this piece will only fill about 75% of the canvas. I'll be adding fabric circles and/or painting on the white edges to tie it into the quilt.

Next up I fused some circles in lime green and I found a small purple dupioni (which looks blackish here but it's really a nice purple) for other circles.

This piece will still be about an inch or two smaller all around. The canvas is 16" x 20", which is the size of the finished quilts for our traveling exhibit.

Only problem I ran into today was my machine froze up as I was trying to attach the circles with a button hole stitch.  I would stitch then all of a sudden my machine would switch on its own to another embroidery stitch!  This isn't good...this is my favorite Bernina machine....it's a 1090 and a workhorse.

 I'm going to research on Google and see if I can find out anything...otherwise, I'm going to wait until we get to Florida and have them take a look at it.  There's a Bernina dealership 5 miles from our house, otherwise, I have to drive an hour to and from to the nearest dealership here in Michigan.  That would be four hours dropping off and picking up and I'd rather wait until January.  I have a backup Bernina that I can use while here in Michigan.  Thank goodness Bob suggested I keep my 1090 when I purchased my new machine.  This way I always have a machine to work with.  Now to unpack my Florida machine and get busy stitching away on this one!