I just completed another donation quilt for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative (which has raised over $883,000 for Alzheimer’s research and awareness).

Like many of my recent small quilts, this one started with a photograph.  I took this photo of a daylily in my yard after a rain, so the petals were still damp.

I played around with the photo in Corel Painter, and I like the softness of this version:

I had the photo printed on fabric (at Spoonflower.com).  Next I fused the printed fabric to a solid black background.

I started the quilting by outlining the daylily and then filling in the background with a variegated green thread.

Next I did a lot of thread painting on the daylily.  I really wasn’t planning to do this much thread work, but sometimes I just can’t stop.  Part of the reason I did so much was that the tips of the daylily that extend into the black fabric didn’t look right with sparse thread, so I kept adding more and more.  If I were to try this again, I’d try to lessen the amount of thread painting to see if I could get a bit different look.

Here’s the fully quilted top.

Here’s a detail of the quilt.  You can still (barely) see the original colors of the flower coming through.

I’ve been experimenting with different binding or finishing methods for these small quilts.  Since they’ll likely hang on a wall without a frame, I like to give them a bit more stiffness.  For this quilt I used a piece of heavy interfacing (Pellon #72).  I wrapped black fabric around the back of the interfacing and then folded an inch or so over the front with 45 degree miters in the corners.  I trimmed the quilt a bit less than 1/2 inch smaller than the wrapped interfacing.  Then I attached the quilt to the interfacing and satin-stitched all around it.  This gives sort of a double-mat effect with the green satin stitching and the black outer border.

Here’s Daylily #3.  I would have trimmed it a bit wider, but there’s a strict size limit of 9×12 inches for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilts.

Please support the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative.  Also, be inspired by the doings of other art quilters at Off the Wall Friday.

I know three people who have got better after a brain tumor. I haven’t heard of anyone who’s got better from Alzheimer’s.
— Terry Pratchett