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Time for the big reveal! This quilt was made for a fabric challenge.
A quilt shop about an hour and 45 minutes north of me hosts an annual fabric challenge, with gift certificates to the store as prizes. Here’s the challenge packet. Must use Kaffe Fassett Tiddlywinks fabric in blue, finish 24" square or smaller, and have a face on it.
Started with cat photo (left), and edited in photoshop to have smaller value range. Printed out grayscale photo to 24" square size on several sheets of paper, and taped together.
Selected fabrics and arranged in value order. All Kaffe Fassett. Best tip to check value: take a photo and make it black and white.
Made a value scale from a strip of background (which I wasn’t going to use)
Outlined and numbered areas with red sharpie. Easy to see, and I want it to bleed to the back side to trace onto fusible. I later gridded the master drawing with blue sharpie, and eventually drew the whiskers with green. Easier to see if each is a different color (and not black). Each square on the blue grid was labeled a, b, c, etc. Each part of the cat is traced onto the paper side of Soft Fuse, and labeled with color number and location on the grid. When I trace, I add about 3/8” extra on the sides going under a darker color to avoid gaps.
Pieces ironed on some of the fabric.
Assembly underway. I press each section between sheets of baker's parchment so it doesn't stick to anything else.
Assembled cat. checked for any gaps, and patched them on the back with a small piece of matching fabric. Ironed the assembled cat to lightweight fusible interfacing. Stitched the cat in the directions the fur grows.
Hard to see the facial features, so I traced them onto Solvy with colored sharpie, and overlaid onto face.
Wet blocked after stitching, which also melts the soluble stabilizer away. You can see the pins holding it to a wool pressing mat.
Made overlapping darts to flatten the cat, trimmed the interfacing, added the background, added whiskers, stitched them to background and blocked again (#2)
Added borders, and layered. I used some small pieces of batting, butted together with a strip of fusible interfacing ironed to the back to keep them together. It wasn't worth cutting into a new king size batt for a 24" square quilt. You cannot tell where the joins are after it's quilted.
Backside, after the face is quilted
All quilted and blocked (#3) before trimming and facing
Blocked it one last time (#4) to get the edges straight and square. Here are some detail shots.
And here she is, with a 2nd place ribbon! I apparently also won viewers’ choice. Disappointingly, I wasn’t able to go, because I banged up my foot a couple days ago, and it’s still a bit swollen. They will hold my quilt (and prize!) until I can make it up there. Not a great photo. The owner will post better ones after she recovers from a busy day.
