A is for . . .

. . . art.  Yes, I have been working on some art.

. . . artists' alliance.  I made this "a" for a collaborative piece with other members of the Treasure Valley Artists' Alliance.  Members will make a T,V, or A (initials for the group) on a 11-1/2" board.  They will be hung together at the Modern Art event at the Modern hotel on the First Thursday in May. 

. . . Anna.  I had drawn this "a" on a piece of paper and asked Anna when she came home from school what she thought it looked like.  Being a pencil drawing on paper and just an outline she said, "Some kind of arch thing."  I had the right side of the bar across the middle of the "a" thinner than what you see. I think my "a" was a little too abstract.  Then I asked her if it looked like an "a" and she said, "Now that you mention it, yes." 

I like how this turned out and will tell you what I did.  When I took Melanie Testa's online class, we layered two fabrics (right sides up) on top of a piece of batting.  We sewed around a picture outline that we had drawn on tracing paper and placed on top of the fabrics (you can probably find detailed instructions in her book Inspired to Quilt).  Then we removed the tracing paper and cut inside the top layer only. After that, we could add more stitches or whatever.

I did something similar and a little bit differently with this piece.  First I chose a background fabric (yellow) and fused little bits of fabrics onto it.  I layered it on batting and went ahead and free motion quilted over top of it.  Then I layered the navy piece on top and my tracing paper with the letter on top of that.  I had marked with pins on the bottom fabric where I wanted the edges of the tracing paper to line up so I could match them even though I could not see the bottom fabric (did that make sense?).  I sewed the outline of the letter and removed the tracing paper.  Then cut just the top fabric inside the stitching.  I went back and satin stitched around the entire letter.  I plan to put some free motion quilting with navy thread around the letter to give it some texture.

I liked using the bits of fused fabric and quilting first.  I think this might be a good technique to use on some of my older pieces that are "finished" but I am not happy with.  I definitely will be trying this again.