Monday, September 17, 2012

Judy W's Spiral: "Staircase To Heaven"

First I'd like to apologize for being tardy with this submission.  Between torrential wind wreaking havoc and felling two significant trees from our landscape, plus a delayed front deck replacement with construction materials adding to the 'disaster status' of our yard, my schedule went completely awry.  This is the first year in a long time that I can say I might be looking forward to winter!

Now, about the spiral theme.  I was off to a slow start and no firm ideas would gel.  Time was nearly up and very few doodles were striking my fancy.  My photo of the spiral staircase inside our Alaska Railroad train car just wasn't working out so I Googled spiral staircase images and found this one, although the original was in black and white.  Using my iPhoto tools, I chose a green color that reminded me of fiddle head ferns.  The image was printed on a June Tailor Colorfast 100% Cotton Fabric Sheet For Ink Jet Printers and heat set with a dry iron.

"Staircase To Heaven" embraces my love of curved lines, spiral staircases, fiddle head ferns when they first begin to unfurl in the spring, but most of all, I love the photo angle with its upward movement that leads my thoughts toward infinity and eternity in heaven.  The black/gold spiral border print was luckily in my stash, as well as the gold spiral braid.  I chose to extensively accent the spiral movement with predominantly green and gold glass beads.  The stair treads are machine quilted with a variegated green Blendable thread.  I machine stitched the braid with gold metallic thread.  I'm not sure the details will show up well enough in this photo but my husband said, "this looks rich".  I agree with him.  It really glows in person.

13 comments:

  1. A word that came to my mind as I viewed this quilt was "opulent." Then reading about it and clicking on the photo to enlarge and see all the detail, I thought of "intricate." Judy, this was worth the wait! What a gem of a quilt this is, and how ingenious you are, too, to take a Google image, manipulate its color to suit you, and then to adorn it so lavishly. Truly gorgeous! Oh....and how perfect is the quilting! And how perfect is the border that just happened to be in your stash!

    ReplyDelete
  2. OH MY GOSH ! MAGNIFICENT ! Dear Sistah... I'm so proud of you ! You depict beauty, harmony, tranquility, peace and calm in what has been for you and all our Anchorage (Alaska) friends a time of tumult and disaster. Beautiful, incredible, amazing. BRAVO ! Love ya, Sistah... Kath

    ReplyDelete
  3. Green and spiral? My goodness - how cool is that?

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is wonderful! It was certainly worth the wait.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm speechless! Victorian splendor comes to mind. I agree with Alice that this is a "gem" of a quilt, and so worth the wait!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Elegant! This is beautiful and makes me want to climb those stairs to see what wonderful view is up there.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This is stunning Judy. it does look rich and elegant. I mssg two fiddlehead versions for this but put both side as I wasn't stisfied with them. Your attention to detail is awesome too!! Locve the wrought iron diocese - how did you do that? LOVE this!! Hope you get a chance to catch a break now!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I should read before responding. I see now how you did the wrought iron. Brilliant!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. My first reaction was "WOW!" . I love the way the stitching on the stairs created texture. Indeed it is rich looking.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This is so beautiful. I cannot quilt to save my soul and this makes me want to try and learn how. Love the colors, love the beads, love it period.

    ReplyDelete
  11. This is absolutely beautiful!! Love it!

    ReplyDelete
  12. That is truly amazing and your method enticing. I would never have thought of it. Love it!

    ReplyDelete
  13. This is so beautiful. Thanks, too, for the careful explanation of your technique. It is truly lovely.

    ReplyDelete