I was born and grew up in El Paso, Texas. When I was a young girl, our Dad bought my brothers and me a Shetland pony. He was a reddish-brown color with spots scattered on his rump, so we named him Strawberry. Although I never had the opportunity to become a real horsewoman, I have always loved and admired horses. Years ago as the sun was setting, my husband and I were traveling in beautiful Wyoming. As we drove along, we were thrilled to see a herd of wild horses running through the meadow. Far ahead was their leader - a beautiful black stallion. He ran parallel with us with complete freedom until we finally passed him. It was one of those once-in- a-lifetime experiences.
One of my favorite childhood books was Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. So when this theme for our final Material Maven Challenge was announced, I knew I would have to create a black beauty quilt based on the book and this memorable experience.
I used scraps of hand-dyed cotton by Mickey Lawler for the sky, hand-dyed cotton by an unknown artist in a bold brass for the mountain range, and a hand-dyed lime cotton by Freida Anderson for the meadow. I added batiks for the grasses in front of the mountain range.
I created the scene from memory. I applied Wonder Under to the back of fabrics for the mountains, cut them out free-hand, and applied them one at a time on top of each other to build the distant mountain range, ironing them lightly to a piece of light-weight resist paper as I went along so that they could be removed in one piece and permanently fused. I prepared the batiks the same way. The next step was to fuse the sky, mountain range and grasses directly onto cotton batting. Then I searched the Internet for photos and drawings of horses. I chose one to enhance to use as my pattern. Then the large grassy meadow was fused, cut out and applied to the foreground.
The final step, and the most critical, was creating the horse. I chose a combination of two different black batiks for the horse - a solid for the horse and a patterned black for the mane and tail. These were then carefully fused, cut out and ironed to the meadow.
The quilting was done with variegated Polyneon thread with Bottom Line bobbin thread. I combined two different embroidery patterns on my Bernina and simple machine quilting to complete the quilt. The back of the quilt and the binding is a batik in traditional southwestern colors.
Beautiful scene. I just love the mane on the horse. Well done.
ReplyDeleteCarolyn, you never let us down! This is lovely. I too adored the book BLACK BEAUTY as a child. You've captured the beauty of that book in a spectacular scene that is rendered in such a lovely way!
ReplyDeleteCarolyn - I love your quilt, and the way you described "building" the quilt was wonderful ! Your "Black Beauty" quilt, and your narrative are truly amazing... Great Job ! ! !
ReplyDeleteThis is a great quilt! The memories you shared and the picture you painted with words of your Wyoming experience are captured well in your quilt. The black fabric you chose for the mane and tail make it look like the wind is blowing through them. The choice of hand dyed fabrics give you quilt richness in color. A lovely quilt!
ReplyDeleteI can almost hear the horse galloping Carolyn! Beautifully designed and rendered quilt capturing not only your childhood pony, but a favorite book and shared unexpected experience while traveling with your husband.
ReplyDeleteBlack Beauty was a favorite of mine as a young girl and I thought about using it as my inspiration too. You had many more connections to it though - I did not even ride a horse until I was an adult.
ReplyDeleteYour color choices for the background are perfect and the rendition of the horse and mane so realistic!! Lovely work once again!!!!