IMAGE MAP

The illustration to the right of the full view image below indicates areas on the quilt corresponding to detail photographs below. Clicking on an area number forwards you down to that particular picture and description - or you may scroll down manually. At each closeup image below there is a quick link back up to this spot for your convenience.

Click on an area number to see a closeup image and detailed description.

The heart is made of two pieces of fabric which have been cut and woven, then appliqued to the background with embroidery. The flowers are made of one piece of fabric, although the center is a different color suggesting a completely separate piece of fabric.

This orange / yellow blend fabric is one piece, with couched pearl cotton running horizontally. To make the "bows," the fabric is folded, sewn, opened, and the fold pressed flat with the seam running down the middle (of the back). The actual "bow" is made, after the fabric has been couched, by tieing up each side with a bead (Lapis).

The featured fabric manipulated here is actually a long strip with opposite edges sewn together. The sides are then gathered. The trick is to get the correct strip length (for the desired circle radius) in order to achieve this particular effect. The circle is then sewn to the seed quilted background. The flower is made from the same hand-painted background fabric giving this design of contrasting fabrics unity.

In keeping with a "nature" theme (flowers, leaves, trees) in this quilt, here you see a closeup of the embroidered Willow Tree comprised of feather stitching using pearl cotton thread.

This embroidery is actually quilted through to the batting and inner backing giving this tree a sense of depth. Also shown here are the Nasturtiums with their freshwater pearl centers and crocheted stems.

This photograph features a quilted (using metallic blue thread) feather motif with the surrounding background seed quilted.

In the center of the motif are Rubies, Emeralds and Sapphires surrounding Mother of Pearl. The motif itself is double batted as if trapunto were used. The very small and tightly quilted background also serves to "raise" the motif.

Here we have a star formed of triple lines of couched cording. The thread is the same metallic thread as the pearlescent cording is made of making it completely invisible.

The star itself is drawn as if originating and ending from the top - just like our school teachers drew them when grading our school work. The background fabric is purple with a faint hint of red blended in. This is why red thread was used to quilt it - bringing out the red in the fabric. It also makes for a nice transition between the red fabric pieced above the purple.

Another area showing a machine quilting motif, this time not accented with background quilting but instead with surrounding fabric flowers. It reminds me of the Sun shining down on a garden. Notice an example (lower left) of the hand quilting in alternating rows as mentioned above.

Carved Mother of Pearl stars adorn the Orange and Purple blended fabric.

The opposite fabric is manipulated with raised wrinkles and matching thread is once again used to couch over (black) pearlescent cording. Not shown is a group of flowers in the lower left corner of the quilt. These flowers are made from this same background fabric as well as having centers of the same stone used on the couched "vines" - representing an abstract garden of vines and buds.

This tuck manipulation, partially shown here, is made from one piece of fabric which has been painted so one side of each tuck (or fold) is different from the other side.

The edges of each fold are brushed with metallic bronze highlights. It is difficult to see this effect from a photograph. Machine embroidered arrows force the center of the tucks to fold back on themselves. It was very tricky trying to get these sections of manipulated, dimensional fabrics to piece in without distorting the overall drape of the quilt - but it was achieved. Patience was the key word.

Yet another traditional quilting motif - this one with the center seed quilted tightly and the points beaded with amber.

The "yellow line" you see in each bead is actually the hole drilled through the almost clear amber. This photograph shows you a good example of the couched cording along all the sashing and border edges. The quilting in these strips is hard to see in these photographs since it was done in black thread - although you can see the shadowing the quilting causes. The white beads shown are freshwater pearls.

I love leaves and you will see this reflected in many of my quilts.

Shown here are embroidered leaves of pearl cotton. I chose this heavier thread since I wanted the leaves to "raise up off" the background. To assure myself of this effect, I tightly seed quilted the surrounding background. Shown below the leaf area are rows of garnets.

Although a poor photograph, here you see fabric furrowed to form a circle of meandering groves - hidden within these crevices are 14k gold beads. The large scale seed quilted background reflects the texture of the circle.

The green fabric below this is quilted with alternating (echoing) rows and then filled in tightly with more seed quilting. This gave me a relief triangle within a triangle. You can barely see the red fabric pieced to the right of this photograph (notice it back on the full quilt photograph above). This stared out as a problem piece to work with. I solved it by adding stuffing behind it, puffing it up like a pillow, and then tacking it down randomly with Hematite beads. It reminds me of furniture or throw pillows with their button tacking. You can see more of this "pillow effect" in the photograph below.

This green triangle was a much larger piece of fabric than it seems. It has been shirred by alternating multiple rows of circles. It was the most difficult section of fabric manipulation to piece in due to the height and bulk of the seams.

What would a crazy quilt be without a spider web... incomplete. This web is another machine motif and sewn in gold metallic thread. The "maker" of this web sits patiently below on a leaf. He is a sterling silver spider with a body of amber. I think it is fitting that the amber still contains fossilized insect remains. On the web is "dinner" - a freshwater pearl representing prey caught and wound in the web.

Permanent, deep wrinkles gave me places to "hide" a sampling of all the beads used on the quilt.

Now this was a challenge - and fun. What you are looking at here is a square made of woven rows of tubes.

I made the tiny tubes, turned them, pressed them with the seams running down the center of the back, and wove them on a pin board right side down. The weaving is tight enough not to leave spaces between the tubes. Since I wove the square right side down, I fused a background fabric to it for permanent security before lifting it off the board. Yellow cording "joins" the yellow pieces of fabric above and below this square.

The beadwork in this area took a lot more time than I anticipated.

The grey fabric, with metallic blue splashes, is embellished with diamond-shaped goldstone, copper beads and lots of very tiny beads of turquoise. I had planned on using the turquoise here to reflect the blue in the fabric. By the time I got to this area, the last I worked on, it was too late to change my mind. I had to unthread and rethread my needle with every bead of turquoise since the holes through them are just big enough for the thread - not for a needle. Now that it is done I am glad I did not substitute another stone since it works so well with the fabric and the "splash" embroidery - also in metallic blue to "mock" the blue splashes in the fabric. The random lines around the quilted circle area are pin tucks filled with cording. The yellow flowers are centered with the same turquoise and are there to match the yellow beading in the embroidery above. Although there is a nice embroidered label on the back, I signed this work, as shown, with my standard monogram.