What can Andy and I say? I, we, Really Love Lucy.
The inspiration for our original design is/was Harry Warnecke’s 1944 portrait. Early last spring I stumbled upon, online, a magnificent portrait of Lucille Ball. It was Harry Warnecke’s 1944 portrait; belonging in a collection in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Lucille Ball, along with a collection of Warnecke’s portraits will be on exhibit at the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland, Florida this coming October through January.
Apart from the subject, Lucille Ball, I was enticed by the colors of the complete composition. My first thought was that Andy and I should create a quilt that would highlight the colors from the portrait. I was able to breakdown and extract a number of the colors. The following is my first attempt at pixelating the colors of the composition of the Warnecke portrait.
The dimensions of our quilt, I Really Love Lucy are: Width – 96” (244 cm) and Length – 64” (163 cm), approximately the size of a twin quilt. The starting point of I Really Love Lucy was the creation of a geometric quilt block, sewn would be 8” square. 96 blocks 8” blocks, each block is composed of nine Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton solid colors.
The block construction is paper-pieced in three parts. Then the three parts were pieced together to create each individual block. Each block, including the drafting of the paper-piecing copy, took approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete. And yes that is 120 hours, just to sew and create the blocks.
Our next challenge was to commit to freeform quilting the constructed top, the batting, and the back on our Longarm. A picture of Lucille Ball wearing a strand of pearls became fixed in my mind. Check out the quilted pearl strands. Andy created an amazing configuration. Also we wanted to keep the lacy-like appearance of the mesh of Lucy’s veiled hat. I believe we succeeded in the wave quilt lines in the blocks.
Here are additional images and close ups of our I Really Love Lucy.
Our I Really Love Lucy has been accepted as a finalist entry at MQX West 2012 in Portland, Oregon the coming October.
Make sure you check out our Who Did Desi Adore? (See Q105.)
Enjoy,
Jim and Andy
Apart from the subject, Lucille Ball, I was enticed by the colors of the complete composition. My first thought was that Andy and I should create a quilt that would highlight the colors from the portrait. I was able to breakdown and extract a number of the colors. The following is my first attempt at pixelating the colors of the composition of the Warnecke portrait.
The dimensions of our quilt, I Really Love Lucy are: Width – 96” (244 cm) and Length – 64” (163 cm), approximately the size of a twin quilt. The starting point of I Really Love Lucy was the creation of a geometric quilt block, sewn would be 8” square. 96 blocks 8” blocks, each block is composed of nine Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton solid colors.
The block construction is paper-pieced in three parts. Then the three parts were pieced together to create each individual block. Each block, including the drafting of the paper-piecing copy, took approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete. And yes that is 120 hours, just to sew and create the blocks.
Our next challenge was to commit to freeform quilting the constructed top, the batting, and the back on our Longarm. A picture of Lucille Ball wearing a strand of pearls became fixed in my mind. Check out the quilted pearl strands. Andy created an amazing configuration. Also we wanted to keep the lacy-like appearance of the mesh of Lucy’s veiled hat. I believe we succeeded in the wave quilt lines in the blocks.
Here are additional images and close ups of our I Really Love Lucy.
Our I Really Love Lucy has been accepted as a finalist entry at MQX West 2012 in Portland, Oregon the coming October.
Make sure you check out our Who Did Desi Adore? (See Q105.)
Enjoy,
Jim and Andy
2 comments:
That quilt is fantastic - I liked hearing about all the thought processes and work that went into it too.
Thank you Diannajessie. Jim
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