Friday, November 12, 2010

HELP! (of the quilting variety please)

so i'm working on a christmas present for my mom (a rooster quilt) and i'm really excited about it.  i'm not a rooster person at all, but the idea for this quilt is so fun that i just can't wait to see the finished product. 

(again, sorry for the photo quality)



 close up of the wood grain fabric (it's from michael miller's gnomeville line)


the top of the quilt

it looks like a bunch of chicken coops stacked on top of one another - i love that.  inside each "coop" i'm going to hand quilt (using variegated perle cotton in shades of red, green, yellow and blue) a different rooster.

i found some great black and white drawings of roosters online that i was able to enlarge and print out.  i tried printing them on cardstock and cutting them out and tracing them with a water soluble fabric marker - didn't work out.

i printed them on regular paper, layered some dressmaker's colored transfer paper under them and traced around the image with a pen.  the image shows up in much more detail but it's so faint i'm not sure i can quilt 12 roosters that way - my eyes might give out on me.

my free hand skills are so-so; i wouldn't dream of trying to recreate each rooster by hand.

so does anyone have any suggestions for getting the image from my computer or paper onto the quilt top so that i can quilt over it? 

5 comments:

emilyc @ Sew Super Sweet said...

Oooo! I can't wait to see how this turns out! My mother raised chickens growing up and then has started again within the last few years, so I can't wait to see how your roosters turn out! (sorry, no advice again on the pattern transfer).

Christie describeHappy said...

I have no idea how to help, but am looking forward to seeing the finished quilt. It sounds so darling!

Ida from Central PA said...

'Freehand' using a projector? I have a projector that I place on top of a drawing, and it puts it up on a 'wall'.

I did this for a portrait of Robert S.S. Baden-Powell for a scouting lecture .... from a 4 x 4 pic to a 28 x 40 flipchart (or something like that).

CLV said...

PROJECTOR! that's IT! i think a friend of mine has access to a projector, too - sweet!!

thank you soooo much!!!

Meadowlark said...

Did you try the "print on freezer paper" method? Or the inkjet paper that you iron on (although that actually stays in it's physical form, so may not work). I also have a silk printable paper... of course, not being a quilter I might be missing something.

????