4. Like a Dream Journal Quilt

Making a Journal Quilt every week is certainly making me aware of just how fast the time passes. Already the 4th week of 2012 and time for another JQ, as part of my project of making one for every week of the year, called 52 Journals. Just click on the label below to see all the quilts so far and there is also a slideshow in the sidebar.

This particular Journal Quilt is also part of the JQ project of the Contemporary Group of the British Quilting Guild. I was going to give that a miss this year but as they decided to go back to an A4 size, how could I resist incorporating them into my own 52 Journals project. As part of their requirements the first 4 monthly ones have to be 75% red. And as you can see above this JQ certainly fulfills that requirement.

The inspiration for this JQ came from a photograph of a detail from a grave monument in the West Linton graveyard. You can read about that monument itself here. First I made the background by layering Mistyfuse on top of a red fabric and covering it with snippets of a wide variety of red fabrics including some very glittery ones. Once the entire piece was covered I ironed them down, activating the Mistyfuse glue. This was then free machine quilted using a pebble pattern.

Then I transferred the gravestone pattern onto Bondaweb (or Wonderunder if you're in the US) which I had already ironed to a piece of bought devore fabric and cut it out. The Bondaweb paper was removed and the two pieces were ironed down as shown, and then machine stitched. I added the gold coloured buttons after removing their shafts so that they would lay flat. Finally I added the text which is really a poem I made using lines from an extraordinary book called: Proverbial Philosophy, published in 1867. If you ever wondered if Christianity was as militant as other religions are nowadays, this book won't leave you in any doubt! But it provides great one liners and I've used it often on pieces of my work. In this case the text reads as follows:

This life is oft so like a dream

we know not where we are

I was wrapt in flames

I knew it was a dream

Before me all was life, and joy

The lines come from different pages but they made a seamless fit and suited the red colour! As it will be February next week I'm already at work on the next Journal Quilt which will be a companion piece to this one. I'll reveal all next week!