I’ve had a busy few days and I’ve finished two quilts this week.

“Edna” the Elephant.

The idea of the elephant was on a poster on a wall in India. I can’t find the picture, it was just in my mind somehow.

I began with fabric from India, the green fabric and the orange is Cotton Rubia fabric.

Of course the Taj Mahal is  real and drawn with pigment ink on the rubia before it was sandwiched. This is one of my own photos.

Th ink worked well on the Rubia fabric.

Kaffe Fassett fabric worked well for the blanket.

I colored the orange with white ink and the tusks are white fabric that I have illustrated.

The ink is pigment and permanent.

In beginning to quilt it, I first stitched around the pattern on the blanket in black thread. then the elephant was quilted the same way. I freehand drew a continuum of the pattern of the blanket onto the body of the elephant, it reminds me of the henna patterns we all have done on our tourist arms when visiting.

I was going to do a pattern on her ears, but decided to just freehand stitch in lines….. I love lines. I was uncertain how I was going to do the Taj Mahal, so I quilted it quite heavily in black thread using free motion. Then I had a quandary as to what I was going to do for the background.

Darn it, I decided to do the negative space lines, its sort of my signature and I love the effect of making the main character stand out. It takes a long time to do, but I love the effect. I do have some tricks to getting it perfect, but you need to come to class to learn that.

I quilted over the  illustration, you know when you get to visit it, it’s often shrouded in mist and I felt that the quilting in green over the top of the illustration gave it a misty effect.

The braid and the tassels were bought in the market in Old Delhi and I chose the pink one purposefully.

Now I’m adding hand stitching over the top of the machine stitches. To add more texture and to break the lines.

I’m using a cotton thread I bought in Guatemala. It’s so nice to use the things you buy on your travels.