The Stars Journal Quilt

December brought the last theme on the Sketchbook Challenge site and it was Holiday Colours. I have to admit I had a bit of a sinking feeling when I read those words. Those who have been reading this blog for a long time will know that Christmas is not among my most favourite times of the year, and I have despaired for quite some time about the fact that the red - green complimentary colour scheme seems to have been high jacked by the festivities. However the winter solstice also falls at this time of year (on the 21st) and I do love the thought that from then on onwards the days are getting longer and the spring closer. So I decided that Holiday Colours didn't have to go down the red-green path but could instead mean glitter, sparkle and light!

And of all of Christmas it's the tree and the decorations that I do adore. Our tree goes up on the 1st December and stays till the end of the 6th January and I miss that bright presence when it is gone. So I decided to concentrate my efforts on the tree. Above the hand drawn pattern I made for the journal quilt tree.

 I then choose a black fabric and used my gelli plate and metallic fabric screen printing ink to put a flower (but also star like) pattern on it using a commercial stencil. I layered it with Bondaweb (WonderUnder) and cut out the tree shape. I put that aside and used what was left (the negative) onto one of my gelli plate printed pieces of cotton. It had started life as white cotton and again I used a mix of acrylics and metallic screen printing paints for the gelli plate printing. Sorry that it's hard to see all that metallic glitter on the photographs but rest assured that it sparkles away merrily. I then hand stitched the tree itself with a variegated thread and outlined all the silver shapes on the black background with a silver thread, again by hand. Then came my favourite time: adding the decorations!

The star shaped ornaments were stitched on with silver seed beads and those beads were also added to the edge of the binding. That binding tones in well with the made tree fabric but is in fact a commercially available batik. The final addition was the vintage text reading: "The Stars are lit for ever".

When I had finished this 10" square journal quilt I had the cut out tree left and it seemed a shame to waste it so you will see what I did with it very soon!