Opposites Attract Journal Quilt

This has been a week filled with lots of activities and a lot of walking, but that didn't mean nothing was done in my studio. On the contrary, there has been a lot of activity there and one of things I worked on was the next Journal Quilt for the Contemporary Group of the Quilters Guild. As I explained in my post about the January one, I'm making the Journal Quilts (which are to be 10" square this year) in conjunction with the Sketchbook Challenge in that I'm using their challenge theme for each month, and am starting each JQ with work in my sketchbook.

The theme for February is Opposites and that immediately make me think of Opposites Attract. I started by brainstorming a long list of opposites in my sketchbook as you can see below and then figuring out how many I could manage to put into one Journal Quilt. The result can be seen above but also on the right in the sketchbook pages. Although I started by working in the sketchbook I did get quite excited about translating it into fabric and in the end the JQ was finished before the sketchbook. Not quite how it should be but it suited my way of working.

The following opposites were combined into my Journal Quilt. Summer - winter, in the shape of photo-collages. These were scanned and printed onto cotton for the JQ. Black - white, black/white - colour, blue - orange, yin - yang (in the shape of a beaded circle), old - young as per the two figures, which also represent other opposites as in male - female, as well as ugly - beautiful. Then there is both hand and machine work, silver - gold thread use and a high - low position for the text, and I think that's all my opposites.

The title Opposites Attract was put together by cutting letters out of a magazine and glueing them onto a background (blue - orange, the complimentary opposite). I used the originals in my sketchbook but for the Journal Quilt they were scanned into my computer and printed out onto fabric. Blue and orange beads were stitched around the respective texts.