This is the view that inspired the illustration of Chicago. The first is  of the city from the window of my hotel, the second is the way the fields of flowers in the center of the city create a feeling of lightness. A combination of beautiful architecture and nature.

So this was part of the illustration in my sketch book.

I finished the drawing, and when I returned home, I printed it on fabric.

The previous blog explains how I composed the picture.

So now it's finished….

I needed to ad the word "Chicago" I didn't want to have to draw it, I didn't want to print it on fabric, so I used some letters from my scrap booking file on the computer, and printed them on my normal printer on very heavy watercolor paper.

I cut out each one individually and stitched them to the quilt with as small zig zag stitch and Superior "so fine" thread".

 The quilt needed to balance, to words were placed in the right hand and left hand side.

The texture of the paper blends in well with the rest of the quilt. Unless you look very carefully and feel it… you can't tell it's paper… anyway who says you can't have paper on your Quilt.!!!!!

The birds illustrated (featured in a previous post) looked a little strange sitting out there all on their own, so I took the strip cut of the end of the quilt when I straightened it up for binding….. I added that as a small feature under the birds… it is already quilted and I stitched it with a small zig zag several times… it adds a little texture to the quilt, finishes the edge of the birds and because it's directional it adds contrast to the printed background.

One of the difficulties working with fabric like this is that the printing is never even…. as a fashion designer that was the bane of my life…. so I've done the best I can with this, but its still a little scew whiff.

And this is the finished quilt. You may notice that I've added a little shadow under the spliced city pieces.

I quilted the city first with smoke monofilament on the top and a light grey Superior Masterpiece thread on the back. I used a 60/8 sharp needle. Free motion.

In the close up photos you will see a little extra free motion quilting.

The rest of the quilt was quilted with the open toed dual foot on the Janome. I used so fine on the top in a color to blend with the background. It was hard to keep to the lines of printing because they didn't match from column to column.

This is truly a Journal quilt. Memories in fabric.