I’ve been working on a mosaic quilt. Well, really it turned into a pair of mosaic quilts. Looking back through the blog I realized that not only did I come up with this idea over six months ago, it’s been over two months since I started this project. Granted, I’ve had it done for a little while, but I’m just now getting it posted!
To follow along on the history of this project, the inspiration photograph, and the details of the process I used to create the mosaics, check out these posts here, here, here, and here. There is also a tutorial on how I kept all these little squares straight during the piecing here.
And now, the quilts! The one I’ve been showing you all along was made with 2″ squares.
But in the midst of working on this I noticed the distinct light/dark variation between the left and right sides of the quilt (which was part of the original photograph) and wanted to create another version that emphasized that dichotomy. So I used 2″ strips and only two columns to create a quilt in two halves.
Both quilts are about 30 inches x 38 inches.
For the quilting I chose intentionally not-straight horizontal lines, because I wanted to emphasize the horizontal lines in the design. I really love how it turned out, but it used quite a lot of thread for such small quilts! The quilting lines are roughly 3/8″ apart.
I would love to hang these up together somewhere, like a diptych. I’d also love to assemble some instructions on how to create mosaics like these from your own photographs. Truth be told, I’d love to write have someone else write a small program just for doing this that would include things like seam allowances and yardages…. Illustrator only does the bare minimum, and it’s far too expensive for anyone to buy just to do this!
I backed version one with my favorite Kona cotton bahama blue. Version two was backed with Kona cotton cheddar (I think). Version two took WAY less time to complete than version one (as I’m sure you can imagine!).
And just as a reminder, here’s the original photograph that inspired these quilts.
And this is the altered version (turned on its side) that I used to create the mosaics.
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stunning! just stunning. I enjoyed watching this quilt progress, and I am happy to see the finished product! more than that, as a quilter myself, I am pleased that YOU are pleased with it! it’s just lovely.
Wow. WOW!
Thanks for sharing your process, and for the inspiration in these two beautiful quilts!
LOVE these Amy! Am inspired to try this sometime. Getting the mosaic from the photo is tricky, did you feel that using photoshop to do that was not subtle enough? The other thing that will be tricky from here (Adelaide Australia) is choosing all the right colours of Kona cotton when I have to buy online and can’t just pop to my local quilt shop for another colour when I’m short. Have you any idea how many different colours you used for this project?
Oh my gosh, what beautiful quilts! They’re really lovely, as is your photography.
Wow!
Wow, these quilts are both so stunning! I especially love that mosaic design, so I hope to try that one of these days. I also love the second version, which has a cool effect too. It’s cool seeing your inspiration photos. It bet it feels great seeing both finished quilts hanging up next to each other. Fabulous work, Amy!
I think they turned out even lovelier than I expected they would. I have to add the mosaic quilt to my list of quilts I’d like to make. I figure that I will be about 150 years old when I get through that list. Rita
I think it looks like a picture that has been pixelized. Love how it looks blurry but it’s not.