Journal Quilt 2009 January

Once again I was seduced into making 12 Journal Quilts this year for the Contemporary Group of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles. The size this year is 6 x 12", so half the size of last year and this size also means that the resulting quilts will fit together nicely. We can use both horizontal or vertical orientation or a mixture of both. As I'm planning to make these into one quilt at the end of this year, it suited me down to the ground.

I had been planning to make a quilt on the theme of Marie Studholme already so I have made her the star of my JQs this year.

Marie Studholme (1872 - 1930) born Caroline Maria Lupton or Marion Lupton, was an English actress and singer, known for her supporting and sometimes starring roles in Victorian and Edwardian musical comedy. Her attractive features made her one of the most popular postcard beauties of her day (Wikipedia). I had bought several postcards featuring her in my vintage postcard collection but have started to actively collect postcards featuring her image in the last 3 years or so. At present I have 133 of them (how did that happen??!!).

For January I choose one of my favourite postcards (featuring her in her role as Lady Madcap, hence the hat!) and scanned it into the computer with 600dpi resolution as I knew I wanted to upscale it. I printed it out onto a new transfer paper sold by Leslie Riley and which I must say I like. It has a really soft handle when transferred and you can easily hand stitch through it. I transferred it to one of my hand-dyed fabrics with an emerald colourscheme. This was then stitched onto a dark green (sort of Victorian looking) velvet background. Behind her head I added a bit of vintage lace and at the bottom a vintage velvet ribbon. I added vintage buttons to the ribbon, a flower embellishment to Marie herself as well as an actual necklace made from beads. Beads and pearls were also hand stitched onto the lace and running stitch to her hat.

I'm making temporary bindings to these JQs using transparent ribbon, but I might remove these again when it comes to putting all the JQs together at the end of the year.