Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Process for Hana Sunrise

I'm back! It's been a LONG TIME since I've posted.  Seems like I just haven't had a single spare minute to do this.  I've really missed it!

The last quilt I finished, Hana Sunrise, was 42"x56".  It was one of the largest pieces I've worked on in my tiny studio, so I thought you'd like to see some of the process.

First, I needed a new, larger design wall.  There wasn't room in the laundry room, so we came up with this:



It's in the garage, but I have a sheet that I can drop over the entire wall to keep it clean.  Plus, I don't leave anything up in there.  I just needed a place to SEE this quilt and stand back from it.

After I fused the bamboo pieces to the background, I stitched them down:


I do this kind of stitching on a layer of batting so I don't get any puckering.  When I go to quilt, I add another layer of batting, then quilt.  My friend Joan turned me on to this concept.  It makes for a nice, sturdy wall hanging.  She discovered after using a single layer of batting that, over the years, the wall hanging tends to lose it's "freshness" and can hang limp.

Then it was time for the quilting, which required a lot of THIS:


Thank goodness we have our own espresso machine now!

The intricate quilting took many, many hours.  Thankfully, both of my machines behaved beautifully during the process.  I was under a very tight deadline to get this completed before the clients returned to Canada, so I was very happy everything worked as it should.


I opened up my folding cutting table to support the weight of this quilt as I sewed.  The silk and two layers of batting were very heavy and the quilting process was exhausting physical work!

Here's a detail shot:


I'm working on one more bamboo piece for the gallery, which I hope to get finished this weekend.  I wanted them to have it before I leave on my trip a week from Friday.  Good thing I have a three-day weekend coming up.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I kept wondering where you were ... Lovely quilt & quilting. Makes me itch to try quilting silk. Do you use silk thread as well?

Unknown said...

Thank you! The silk is just wonderful to work on. I used YLI #100 silk thread for the quilting in the top and Aurifil cotton thread in the bobbin along with a 70# Microtex Sharp needle.

suzietee said...

I love the way you outlined the leaves. The colors are very appealing to me. Thanks for the idea of the batting layers because I do notice some of my wall hangings are not as stiff as I would like.

Nellie's Needles said...

It's always interesting to see where and how other artists work. Thank you for sharing your wonderful art and processes with us. Have a good trip.

Teri said...

Hi Diana,
I love Hanna Sunrise! The quilting is beautiful and sets it off perfectly!