FFFC 46 Fossils of a Different Color

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Above is my Fast Friday Fabric Challenge #46 for the month of June. It is a day late, but actually with my recent track record that is very good. It is small, only 10.5 x 10 inches, almost square. I am surprised as I rarely work square but that is what this one seemed to want so there it is. I am calling it Fossils of a Different Color. The challenge this month was to use geology and unexpected colors. Fossils are found in layers of rock, and I find them fascinating so I decided to use one for my quilt. The above fossil is based on some photos I found through Google, and to be honest I am not even sure what it is a fossil of, some short of shelled animal, probably a nautilus.

Process for this quilt was to create the drawing of the large fabric fossil based on the photos I found, then I created freezer paper templates.  I had also done some thumbnail sketches of how the final quilt could be laid out including the smaller fossils that would be done with stamps and paint.

For the background fabric enhancement I designed and cut two stamps based on the shape I was using for the large fossil. I had picked out a background fabric of a light fuchsia color, and decided I would use a dark blue and greens for the large fossil. While I was working on another project I came across a batik that sort of looked like stone to me and that used the colors I was working with. I decided to add it to the background as a base for my large fossil. I had purchased more acrylic fabric paints for this project, blue and green pearlized colors by Jacquard. Below is a photo of the stamping process with one of the two stamps I carved. What you see here is just one stamp with blue paint, I used the second stamp with the blue then I switched to the green paint and did some over stamping. The fabric is pinned to a padded base that I made a while ago to use as a support underneath the fabric when I stamp.

I used my freezer paper templates to create the large fossil, ironing the templates to fabric and then cutting them out. Using a white fabric glue to temporarily hold it all together I pre-assembled the large fossil. After I stamped the background I let it dry for a day, then ironed it to heat set the paint. Next I positioned the large fossil and using a narrow satin stitch sewed the unit down to the layered quilt top . The image below is the sandwiched quilt after I had attached the large fossil but before I did the background quilting. The Thread spools you see are what I was auditioning to use.

I started using the gray thread on the top right, but it was shredding in the needle after sewing a few minutes, so since I was working under a certain amount of time restraint I decided to just use something else rather then try and figure out how to make it work. I ended up using another color of King Tut variegated thread besides the one you see on the left above which I used on the fuchsia background.  Once it was quilted I trimmed the top a bit more and applied the binding using the same fabric I had used for the background. All fabrics and threads are 100% cotton, batting is also 100% cotton and fairly thin.

That is it for this post. Now I need to go post this quilt on the FFFC blog, and several other groups I belong to. Comments are welcome as usual.