Whiplash Entry Week 5 – The Yarn Farm

This week’s theme on Whip Up was Yarn. Thursday, as I finished up my Mom’s presents, I spun my wheels trying to think of an idea. I was determined to enter this week since I’d not found made the time since the first challenge. I could fill a book with my thoughts about the recent Whip Lash commentary. Let me just say Kathreen, your gracious, generous and passionate spirit are a true inspiration. Thank you.

Inspiration struck as I walked Caitlin to the bus stop. Our neighbor across the street has one of the few remaining active farms here on the Island. I love everything about the farm. The sounds, the smells, the donkey, the green pasture, the fresh eggs, absolutely everything. The girls and I like the sheep the best. Anne, the owner, recently purchased sheep especially for spinning wool. So, without further ado, I present: The Yarn Farm.

This is my first attempt at a free form quilt design (dare I say art quilt). The Spring 2006 issue of Quilting Arts magazine features an excellent article by Liz Berg entitled The Art of Abstraction. She steps through, in detail, her technique of creating an abstract quilt. I followed her steps to create this piece. She starts the process with a picture. I took the following photo of the farm as my starting point:

I enlarged the barn on my inkjet copier and then traced it to make a pattern. I free form pieced a base fabric (the sky and the pasture) that I secured to Peltex. I fused the individual pieces of the barn to a separate piece of fabric which I then backed with WonderUnder. I fused the trees, the entire barn and the sheep to the background. I free-motion quilted as I went.

In the article, Liz recommends using Timtex. I’m thinking the Peltex (which I purchased at JoAnns) is the same thing, maybe not? If anyone knows the difference please leave a comment. It was too stiff for my liking. I felt like I lost texture in the quilting since I had no batting and the thickness of it made it difficult for my needle to do its thing. I also realized at the end I couldn’t easily do hand embellishment with beads or embroidery because of the thick interfacing layer. All that being said, I couldn’t be happier with the final result. I have a million ideas swirling that I’d like to try next. I’d love to do a whole series of scenes in my neighborhood. I’m glad I finally took that step off the ledge. The landing was pretty soft.