My bird quilt is finished yay!
A little info, this quilt measures approx 57" x
72" {143 x180 cm}
Made with Laurie Wisbrun's Tufted Tweets and
some Katie Jump Rope by Denyse Schmidt for the binding. Solids are from my local
market.
Hand quilted with vintage white embroidery
floss, black silk and Sulky in grey.
This is my first {and certainly not my last} pieced backing. I
drew more cages on the back used up some left over bits of tweets and added the
white and black because I'd ran out of grey. I love how it's turned out even
though the design was quite random.
This quilt has a lot of 'me' in it. Often I
find inspiration in song lyrics, this happened to be the case with this quilt as
well. The two lines that kept running through my head were "it's just an empty
cage girl, if you kill the bird" from Crucify by Tori Amos. And
"all your life you were only waiting for this moment to arrive" from Paul
McCartney's Blackbird.
Once I saw Tufted Tweets I just knew they'd be perfect for my black 'ravens' and
empty cages quilt.
Quilting is therapy for me, as I know it is for
a lot of you out there as well. It offers me the opportunity to have a creative
outlet for my emotions and things I go through in life. This last year has been
a tough one for me and my battle's not over yet. Five years ago I ended an
abusive relationship and it's been a long lasting battle to reclaim my own life
and freedom. These birds and their empty cages symbolize these last five years
for me.
It took me a while to figure out just how to
quilt this but I decided to repeat one of the patterns in the fabric for the
quilting {the connected oval shapes} and I added some vertical and horizontal
stripes in various widths.
This orange binding is completely out of my
comfort zone! But I've been trying to overcome my fear of orange {I blame
football for that!} and I'm really pleased with how it looks!
I love this bit on the back where the quilted
cage overlaps the one I drew!
x Leila
p.s. The inspiration lyrics for my next two
quilts are...."I wanna really really really wanna zigazig ah!" {yup that's the
Spice Girls and I'm feeling the shame! ;-)} and it's a tie between "From the
moment I could talk I was ordered to listen" & "you're my pride and joy
etc."
I know this quilt well and it is lovely to see it again and hear more about it. I totally understand the lyrical influence and quilting and i love what this represents for Leila!
ReplyDeleteThis is so beautiful quilt! I love everything here!
ReplyDeleteThank you Heather and Megan for featuring my quilt!
ReplyDeleteI've always loved this quilt and it's lovely to hear how meaningful it is to you.
ReplyDeleteWhen I made your scrappy hoop this quilt was in my mind ... as I found it so dark and lovely at the same time ...
Are we there yet? I think we are Leila, I think we are! xxx
this is a great quilt! so unique!
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely creation. And now Blackbird is stuck in my head (which is fine, since it's a song I love).
ReplyDeleteBirds galore!! My kind of quilt. I like all the hand stitched bird cages:)
ReplyDeleteI love *LOVE* this quilt in so many ways... What it means to the artist, the randomness of the design/color, the quilting (the quilting!), and use of mixing drawing, sewing, and stitching.
ReplyDeleteLOVE IT~
Back to lurking now...
Wow, love your quilt. What inspiration for others! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteA most beautiful quilt, given meaning by the story behind it.
ReplyDeletePomona x
Fantastic quilt and very brave of you to open up and tell the story behind it.
ReplyDelete@Kerry we should really do an evening of music listening together, preferably LP's so we get all the little cracks too!
ReplyDelete@Teje thank you!
@ Sarah Big fat smooches thanks my lovely X
@ Randi thank you!
@LT so sorry ;-)
@ Sara so glad you like it!
@ Lois so glad you came out to comment, thank you! Happy lurking ;-)
@ Nikki lovely comment thank you!
@ Pomona thank you so much x
@ susan Thanks a lot!
Beautiful. You did a wonderful job. I love the bird cages, too. So unique!
ReplyDeleteWow. That is wonderful and so unique. It looks great!
ReplyDeleteThis is a stunning quilt!
ReplyDeleteLove your quilt. It's peaceful to me....love looking at it. You've done a beautiful job with the hand quilting too.
ReplyDeletewhat a lovely story and a lovely quilt! I LOVE the fact that you hand quilted it! I get so disappointed when a beautiful quilt gets lost in too much machine quilting. You found just the right balance. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteI love your quilt! There are so many details that I keep noticing. It's beautiful!
ReplyDeletethis quilt is really beautiful. thank you for sharing your story . Janita
ReplyDelete