Saturday, March 15, 2014

Carolyn: Kiss Me, No Translation Required




NO TRANSLATION REQUIRED!


All I could think of when the word "translation" was selected as our theme was the translation of one language into another.  That is, until I stumbled upon the synonym, "transform."  I immediately thought of the frog being kissed by the princess and transformed - or translated - into a prince.  I made a close-up of a princess using cotton and silk with raw-edge appliqué and applied it to the background with Wonder Under.  I added golden hair made with layers of Angelina fibers. The most difficulty I had was creating her whimsical features and puckered lips, which are drawn on with colored pencils.  For another fun effect, I added a dangling earring.  I found a picture of a frog, reproduced him in fabric and set him into the palm of her hand.  The hearts are raw-edge appliqué and the words, "kiss me" are hand embroidered in hand-dyed floss.  After stitching each piece into place, I  free-motion quilted around each image.




I decided to make a second quilt for the back. I translated "Kiss Me" into 30 different languages and then chose the ones that I wanted to add to the back panel.  The words were printed onto fabric, added to the background fabric with Wonder Under, then appliqué, as were the hearts.  I machine stitched around the translations using a tiny zig-zig stitch and stitched around the hearts and the label.

10 comments:

  1. What a fun, whimsical, and delightful interpretation of our theme word! I personally never got beyond the knee-jerk definition of "translate," but seeing your quilt opens all sorts of windows for me with this word!

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  2. This is so cute Carolyn- I love both sides. The frog and princess illustrations are fabulous! and The translations on the back add such a fun touch! As always you outdo yourself. :)

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  3. Your quilt is so whimsical. I love the frog and the lips. Such fun. I enjoy the back and all the translations.

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  4. Love both puckered up frog and princess! What fun this is, and looks like you had a good time creating it also. Just makes me smile!

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  5. This is a fun piece - I would like to just ditto what everyone else has said.

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  6. So cute and charming!!! Love the puckered lips and hair.

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  7. You really got everything right here! It is just adorable and I love how you used angelina fibers. Next years Dallas theme is "Funny Quilts" I hope you create one of your adorable ones for it, because your sense of humor just tickles my funny bone.

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  8. This is so cute! I love that you stated the obvious, that sometimes, no translation is needed. You did a great job illustrating the puckered lips and using the angelina fibers was inspired.

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  9. Love. love this! Exquisite use of every technique here to give a total whole that is right on the mark - no translation needed in our culture to immediately feed in the words to a story portrayed here on how a frog might get to be translated to a prince. The detail on the back is over the top wonderfulness. Bravo!

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  10. This is amazing! So much attention to detail. I love the look and the idea! Great job.

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