Breaking Traditions 2009

I've been working on finishing up my 12" x 12" piece for the Breaking Traditions Art Quilt Exhibit. This is a traveling exhibit curated by Lynn Krawczyk and this year will benefit Bernie Berlin's dog rescue, A Place to Bark. In honor of Bernie's efforts to find orphaned and abused dogs permanent loving homes, the theme for the 2009 exhibit is "Home." I did mess up on my naming the quilt! For some reason, I had 'home' in my title but I changed it to 'house' when I printed it onto my background. What was I thinking..oh well..the meaning is the same. Our house/home does belong to Mandy and she is in our hearts!!

So this was a hand dyed (background fabric) piece I did a few years ago. Always knew it would come in handy for some piece of art work! I stamped the trees beside the house and you can see where I was designing my house with metal for the seams. Aren't those footprints just the sweetest!
So here's my 'house' saying. Here's some of the quilting I did on the background.

I did transfer down the footprints and writing with the TAP transfer paper by Lesley Riley. Worked really well. You can't iron over the transfers but I kept that in mind. I didn't have any of my hand stitching in the grass area around the footprints. I'm still working on filling in those areas now.

So here's my finished house with Mandy looking out the front door. Yes, that's a front door! It is to me! You can see some of the beading in the trees if you click on the photo. I have some more beads to add on them. I embossed and cut strips of light weight metal and sewed the down on the house. The roof is made of painted fusible web that I fused onto fabric.

This shows a little more of the piece. I have some darker threads to hand stitch in the grass yet over the free motion quilting. Mary, Carol and I are sending in our pieces together and I'll be mailing them on Monday. Actually, this is the first time Carol finished something before us! Good going, Carol! Her piece is really nice! and I'll have to ask if she minds if I put it on my blog. I'll be getting Mary's sometime Sunday or Monday. I am putting a black and white binding on the piece just to jazz it up some more. This is a playful exhibit (I think!) and I do want my piece to be just that...playful!