26. A Man's Works Journal Quilt

It is rare indeed that a Journal Quilt comes together as easily as this one did. In fact the design sprung into my mind ready made and with absolutely no assistance from my over thinking mind. I spotted what I call the samurai fabric on Susan Briscoe's stand at the World Textile Day I told you about in an earlier post. You can see that fabric on the right hand side of the JQ above in the shape of that fierce looking man. The fabric is vintage Japanese. When I spotted it I immediately sought how I would like to surround him with other ethnic fabrics with raw edges.

I could probably have found plenty at home but as luck would have it there was so much choice in the same place on the same day that temptation proved to be too much and the other fabrics (seen above) were purchased from Textile Traders. So this ended up being a very pricey journal quilt but on the other hand I only used very small quantities of each fabric so there is plenty left for future projects.

I used Mistyfuse to put it all together by laying a piece the same size as the background (A4 landscape size) on top and adding the samurai fabric and strips of all the other fabrics (leaving their edges raw). Then I ironed the whole lot as per the Mistyfuse instructions. Each strip was hand stitched too along the two long edges and the samurai was hand embroidered. Buttons were sewn on as shown, as well as the vintage text which reads: "For a man's works do follow him". To make it more durable I added Diamond Glaze to the text.

The binding was made from the samurai fabric and size 11 seed beads were once again the finishing touch.

Finally notice the number! I've reached the half-way stage of the 52 Journals project, the point of no return, so the only way is to carry on. So far, so good. Remember if you want to see all the previous ones you can click on the 52 Journals label below this post to read and see detailed descriptions of the ones I've made so far or you can enjoy the quick slideshow in the side bar.