Nursery Rhyme Challenge

First, I need to explain the Nursery Rhyme theme for the online Art Quilters Around the World challenge.  We take turns selecting a theme and this time it was Christine Lee's turn and here is her explanation:
'Nursery Rhyme'
"Illustrate your own amusing reason for an author to have written what he /she did. ie was little jack Horner a naughty boy and was sent into the corner as punishment?  Did another egg push Humpty Dumpty off the wall?"
Christine Lee

Before I show my finished quilt, check out a cartoon I found on FaceBook!  It sure hit Cristine's theme!    Cute, isn't it!  

I've always enjoy Theodor Seuss Geisel's , a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, books...who hasn't!, so I thought I would start researching some of his stories and try to figure out why he wrote some stories/books.    In doing that research, I found out that  Mr. Geisel was asked to write a reading primer for children.  The thought back in 1956-57 was primers (e.g. Dick and Jane primers) were boring and made learning a chore for children.  Who knew!  Not me...I grew up on Dick and Jane....but I digress!!    Mr. Geisel was asked to write a children's book/primer and he was given 250 words that he had to use in his book.  Hence, Mr. Geisel started with the first 2 words, which were...CAT and HAT!  Hence, The Cat in a Hat was born!!!  

 Here is my "The Cat who Taught Kids to Read"!

So that is where I started.  I transitioned Dick into becoming the CAT......

And poor Jane became Thing 1!

I've had this piece finished for several weeks just because it was so much fun to make!!!  I started off looking up  coloring pages of Dick and Jane as well as different images of the CAT and printed on paper to get some ideas on how to fit them in my quilt.  Here are Dick and Jane printed out on paper!

Of course, I had to draw some hair for Jane (or Thing 1!) and a hat and bow tie for Dick.  Once drawn up on fabric I just painted with textile paint. Then I printed out on fabric colored pics of Dick, CAT and Jane and painted over some areas with textile paint just so they looked a little brighter. 

I quilted the background fabric first then fused all the pieces and used buttonhole stitch (red pieces), straight stitch then free motion quilted all of the other areas.    This was another fun challenge!  Do stop over on the blog to see how the others created their Nursery Rhyme piece!!!