32. Shelter Journal Quilt

I honestly think that the Sketchbook Challenge site organizers must be telepathic, even across the width of the Atlantic and the many miles separating us. When they announced the new theme for August, which is "Shelter", guess what I had laying on my work desk ready to be turned into one of my weekly journal quilts for the 52 Journals project? Yes, the photo shown at the bottom of this post, that I had taken during our visit to Glen House some weeks ago. I had carefully composed it when taking the photograph as together the dovecot and the old chair formed such a lovely still-life. But of course, the dovecot also provides shelter. 

What could I do but set to work on turning this into my 32nd journal quilt this year as well as my entry for the Sketchbook Challenge. I did my token sketch but yet again I was much more eager to grab some fabric and make a start. 

This is the fabric I started with. It's a furnishing one, with lots of texture which is what I needed. I layered it up with wadding (batting) and backing fabric and machine quilted it with white cotton thread and using one of the decorative stitches on my machine. It was only meant to add more texture and hold the layers together. After that I took it off to my painting studio in one of our sheds and after gessoing it, I painted, splashed, splodged, stencilled and sprayed it to my heart's content. Vintage text from an old French dictionary was also added. It's quite sparkly too (although you can't see that on the picture of the finished journal) as I used mica sprays towards the end.

The dovecot and chair were digitally enhanced from my original photo and printed onto silk, and then Bondawebbed onto this background as shown, and I also hand stitched it down. The dovecot looked a bit bare without birds (specially as it is they who are given shelter) so I rummaged around and found a fabric collage sheet (from Alpha Stamps), and they were Bondawebbed too and stitched in position.

The final touch was the quotation. It reads: "Our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home". It was layered up with a baby wipe that had served as my cleaning up cloth while painting the background and thus toned in beautifully with the rest of the journal quilt. I needed a bit of a colour lift so added the complimentary orange but in shades i.e. brown with the binding. My signature size 11 seed beads along the edges of the binding also added a bit of a sparkle.

Remember you can see all the journal quilts I have made weekly this year so far by clicking on the 52 Journals label below or by checking out the slideshow in the sidebar. Only 20 more to go.