Hibiscus Quilt Finished

My hibiscus quilt is finished. Let the trumpets sound and the celebration begin!!!  This piece started back in March when I saw a photo that Meredith of mereknits-mereknits.blogspot.com posted of a beautiful hibiscus in her yard. I emailed her to ask permission to use her photo in an art quilt. The flower was stunning, but I also liked the background. She graciously agreed, and slowly I began documenting my progress on this piece. 

Here is my finished piece with an enlargement of Meredith's photo taken from her blog.

As you saw in an earlier post, I tried my hand at doing a lot of stitching on this piece. Not being completely confident about what I was attempting, I chose a light backing fabric. Not to worry, it looks pretty good to me. :-)

Here is the thimble that I purchased at the recent Bayberry Quilt Show. This beautiful silver thimble featuring a swan and sapphire stone was made by Jan Marie Larson of Thimbles for You.  If you go to any of the big shows, be sure to check out her pieces. She was also vending at the World Quilt Show in Springfield and will be in Houston. It was a slight splurge on my part, but it is like wearing a mini piece of art on my fingertip. :-)

A word about threads used in this piece. . . 

As you can see, I used quite an assortment. In an earlier post I showed petals stitched with Superior Fantastico variegated thread. I also used the green Superior Fantastico for the veining in some of the leaves. The two shiny orange Sulky rayon threads were used sparingly as accents. The rest of the threads were chosen strictly for color to create shadings and are a mix of Sulky and Mettler threads.

One thing I learned about variegated threads is to check the distance between color changes. I remember Bob Purcell of Superior Threads discussing that on The Quilt Show a few years back, and I filed it away in my memory bank. Someone on another blog was talking about using Fantastico whenever she needed a bit of shine, so I tried it. I love how it looks in the close up below.

A bit of bead work . . . there a cluster of tiny yellow beads and some slightly larger orange, glass beads.

The finished piece is 25.5 by 21 inches.

If you are new to my blog or would like to try turning one of your photos into a quilt, I have made a list of links I posted while working on this piece. 

Inspiration and Creating a Pattern

Painting Fabric for My Hibiscus Quilt

Using a Vinyl Overlay

Quilted Wallhanging Progress

Quilted Wallhanging Progress - Part 2

Stitching for the Faint of Heart like Me :-)

The above links will give you an idea of how I approach creating a piece such as this. Each time I make a quilted wallhanging based on a photo, I seem to try new things.  The vinyl overlay which appliquers sometimes use worked well and depending on the subject I might try that again. I know that I won't be afraid to add stitching to my future pieces. 

One more thing: At a guild meeting a couple of years ago, I asked a presenter how she got her wallhangings to hang so perfectly flat. She said that she used a layer of deco bond on the back of her tops, and so I did that on this piece. It does indeed hang very flat against the wall. I'm not sure whether she also used batting, but there is also a layer of batting in my piece.

All in all, this piece was a positive experience for me, and I cannot wait to see what I will try next. :-)