My First Landscape Quilt

I got invited to display some of my quilts in a local exhibit starting on May 15. I wanted to make something completely new for it, and I had a lot of really beautiful hand-dyed fabrics, so I decided to make a landscape quilt.

The view on the quilt is inspired by bits and pieces of the scenery we saw in New Hampshire while we were there in the fall, although I chose to depict summer instead of fall. I used hand-dyes and batiks for the main fabric choices, but the leaves and the flowers in the foreground are cut from three different Japanese fabrics.

I didn’t like the colors of the leaves, so I hand-colored them with Prismacolor colored pencils, then heat-set the colors with an iron. I also used Shiva paintsticks to add iridescent snow to the mountain peaks, darker green in the foreground and some really lovely highlights on the water of the lake. These oil paints in solid form have to dry for there days, then they, too, can be heat-set to make them permanent. Today, I am going to heat set the oil paints and then sew on a border/frame. Then I can get the backing and batting together and start quilting it!

I’ll post pictures when it is finished!

11 Comments

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1. That is gorgeous! Can’t wait to see it when it’s all done.

   Comment by Cindy — May 2, 2009 #

2. Your quilt is beautiful! I love the colors and the fabrics. Thank you for sharing with us.

   Comment by Mary — May 2, 2009 #

3. Looks absolutely lovely!

   Comment by Grace — May 2, 2009 #

4. Wow! This is absolutely exquisite. You are so incredibly talented – in the arts, with your culinary creations, and with your writing. Thank you for sharing your talents with the rest of us.

   Comment by Kara — May 2, 2009 #

5. A class is coming up at a quilt shop in CdA, Idaho and I’m doing a little “surfing” to see what I can find. Looks hard…wonder if I can do it???!!!

   Comment by Marge — May 3, 2009 #

6. Those quilts are gorgeous! You are so talented and give us so much – from recipes to ideas about green living to little vignettes about your family. I am praying that the doctors will find out what’s wrong with you and that you will be able to regain your health. You give us such joy and I know that we are all praying for you, each in our separate way but all with sincere conviction.

   Comment by Nancy — May 3, 2009 #

7. Marge, the techniques I used in making this quilt are not that difficult. The main large shapes–the mountains, hills, lake and foreground–are layered from top to bottom. I cut the shapes from various fabrics, and I folded down the top edges 1/4″ and pressed them. Then I pinned everything into place from top to bottom (with the exception of the little hills that make the “fjords” in the lake–those were pinned on top of the lake layers) and top-stitched everything in place.

   Then, I did the branch and leaves and flowers as well as two details on the fjord-hills using Steam-A-Seam lite fusible interfacing. The tree branch I also top-stitched, but the leaves and flowers, because they are so small, I did not.

   The techniques are pretty simple for this style of landscape quilt. I think you can do it–especially if you pick a simpler shape for the overall quilt than I did, and a simpler subject.

   Comment by Barbara — May 3, 2009 #

8. Thank you Nancy–I do hope we can figure out what is up with me so I feel better, too.

   Comment by Barbara — May 3, 2009 #

9. Your quilt is gorgeous!

   Comment by Dragon — May 3, 2009 #

10. Really beautiful! There is something so rewarding in making beautiful things.

    Comment by jennywenny — May 4, 2009 #

11. I love the leaf and flower details. Really lovely.

    Comment by Christy — May 7, 2009 #

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