Journal Quilt 2008 March

For some reason the Journal Quilt this month came together so much easier than last month, maybe because I had been thinking about it a lot already. Last month I really felt it was getting too much like hard work while this one almost arrived in my mind fully fledged. I just had to translate it into fabric.

These Journal Quilts are for the Contemporary Group of the British Quilters Guild and are sized 12 x 12" this year. Mine are dedicated to my most loved place in all the world (apart from my home!) which is Venice.

The background is a soft blue velvet from Cabbage Patch fabrics. I seem to have soft blue on the brain, as this is also the colour for the ColourGroupies ATCs this month, combined with brown. I will show these to you later once they have arrived with their recipients.

The velvet was machine quilted and I even applied the binding before I did any work on the surface.

The centre is made from a vintage map of Venice which I scanned into my computer using my new A3 scanner (I'm so pleased I bought it!!) and then I used the Kaleidoscope Creator program to make it into this shape. I printed it out using the poster setting, to make it the size I wanted it to be i.e. 11". I printed out onto self adhesive cotton sheets (from Crafty Computer Paper) and stuck them on the background. I also stitched around the perimeter, although this is not necessary, the sheets stick really well.

I also scanned in some of my vintage images from some of Venice's lovely buildings which were also printed and attached using the same sheets, as was the title which belongs to Venice: La Serenissima.

I did heaps of beading as decoration is the name of the game for almost everything Venitian!

I do hope that the next months' JQs will be as kind to me as March was!