Thursday 5 September 2013

Crystal Ball

You might remember a number of posts (spanning from all the way back in February to more recently) all about a certain quilt I was (mostly failing at) working on.

Well, now that Big Teeth is finally finished I can set to work on The Constellation Quilt. This quilt is more of a story book or comic strip, telling the tale of the fortune-telling but unlucky in love witchy siren Polly Kettle (a performative alter ego of mine).

As well as spelling out Polly's name letter by letter in square patches, the quilt has a narrative, typewritten below:


In between the narrative and letter patches will be illustrative, playful patches portraying Polly and her accoutrements (crystal ball and all!) Here is one below. It's stitched on to hand screen printed linen by Room39:



And the first (though not chronologically) of the narrative patches, complete with iridescent sequins for shading:


I haven't quite decided which patch to stitch up next; possibly an appliqué of Polly herself. The quilt may have to take a bit of a back burner once again, however; I'm starting my training at the Royal School of Needlework next week, and imagine I'll get fairly busy fairly quickly! A post on that to follow.

2 comments:

  1. Wow, Kate, this is amazing hand work of yours. I LOVE the combination of quilting and tale-telling and magic. Oh, my. I admire your work so! I'm an amateur embroiderer, sort of making it up as I go with a tad bit of instruction from the danish mother of my oldest friend. It is magic work, I daresay. Quilt-making, wow-- true witchery!

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  2. Hello Sylvia! That means a lot, because I really respect and admire your work. Thank you. I would love to see some of your embroideries!

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