Project Quilting 13.4: Mining for Diamonds

 

This week's Project Quilting challenge had us Mining for Diamonds; Inviting participants to use the diamond as inspiration for our one-week challenge entry. 

My diamond-inspired project features the 4Cs of Diamond Quality with a few artistic modifications...

1. Crystal

I've had this set of glass crystal-cut dessert plates and bowls for years. Not only did they remind me of a diamond but the outer ring features diamonds along with some other lovely shapes and patterns: Perfect for printing onto fabric. A foam pouncer was used to apply Jacquard's Super Sparkle Lumiere paint to the backside of the plate before placing solid fabric on top. There was a bit of a learning curve to achieving a crisp, clean impression, but I was happy to have a few spare prints to use for subsequent experiments.

2. Carving

Earlier this week, I embarked on my 100 Days of Hand-Carved Stamps, where I'll be carving a new stamp each day. Rolling Artist's Choice for both shape and design inspiration provided the perfect opportunity to carve a stamp for use in this week's Project Quilting entry. Drawing design inspiration from the plate's cutwork, a few different doodles were auditioned for use along the outer edge of the plate prints. The selected motif was carved out of a scrap of Speedball Speedy-Carve block and test printed onto paper and the spare plate prints before stamping onto the best print, again using the Super Sparkle Lumiere paint. 

3. Color

A few pops of color were introduced through Gelly Roll Moonlight pens after first testing on a spare print. 

Once the pen marks were heatset with a hot, dry iron, a navy Isacord thread was used to free-motion outline the various stamped elements and a dense zig zag border fill. 

4. Cut

Once the quilting was complete, it was layered with a new backing fabric for a pillowcase finish. Once the layers were stitched, the excess bulk was trimmed away. A small slit was cut into the back to turn the sandwich inside out and pressed flat. 

Earlier in the week, I carved an Artist Tjap for use with my quilt finishes. While I had intended to stamp it on the frontside, I confess that I totally forgot until after the quilting was complete.  Instead, it was stamped on the quilt label which was fused to conceal the slit on the backside.

It was fun to layer mark-making techniques with free-motion quilting using all the supplies below...

for a fun mini quilt finish...

"Bling It On" Finishes 9" in diameter

"No pressure, no diamonds."

-Thomas Carlyle, Scottish Philosopher

This quote seemed especially appropriate for this week's Project Quilting one week-challenge. Be sure to check out all the diamond-inspired entries made this week for Project Quilting's Mining for Diamonds challenge!