Merry Christmas

Christmas decorations go up around our house the day after Thanksgiving and come down the day after New Year's Day.  For a little over a month we get to enjoy the ornaments on the tree . . .

 and the snowman who never melts . . .

 and the ceramic Nativity set that reminds me of the reason for Christmas . . .

"The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us).  Matthew 1:23

Village Churches

After receiving permission to make a quilt based on Gaynor Chapman's artwork, I puzzled over how to make the figures scattered throughout the piece.  There are nine people: one kneeling under a tree, two standing by another tree, three nuns walking toward the main church and three larger figures carrying objects.  Here's the finished quilt.

This grainy detail image is of the original artwork.

My solution was to draw the figures on a neutral fabric and paint them.  I fused white interfacing to a  lightly-mottled batik to give it more opacity.  The fine weave of a batik is an excellent base for fabric pens and paints.  Freezer paper was then ironed to the wrong side of the fused fabric to stabilize it. With my drawing of the figures secured to the lightbox, I taped the paper-backed fabric on top of the drawing and traced the drawing with a Pigma pen.  Then the fabric could be removed to a table and painted. 

After the figures were painted, I removed the freezer paper and added Wonder Under fusible web to the back before cutting around the figures about 1/8" from the exterior outline.  This left the original light batik fabric extending 1/8" beyond the figures.  After fusing the figures to the quilt I used a small zigzag stitch to applique the figures to the quilt, changing thread colors as needed.  I then used appropriate paint and pens to touch up the white border beyond the exterior outline of the figures. 

.