Moon River

Oops, I lied - or perhaps misspoke is a better choice of words.  On Facebook, I termed our Saturday post of Elizabeth's favorite FMTTM quilts as the final installment.  However, I forgot that I hadn't mentioned my Moon River quilt.  I did post about it and the process early in 2016 after the exhibit was juried, but I don't think it hurts to share it again, especially for any viewers new to our blog since then. 

The process of making Moon River was challenging.  There were a few trial and error elements to this quilt that evolved over time.  Starting with the moon, I had a shibori resist piece done with large circles, so I used one of those circles, which were light blue surrounded by indigo, and printed with silver paint on half a head of cabbage to give it texture.

In the first incarnation, I kept the indigo surrounding the moon as part of the sky, but wasn't happy with the sky so ended up cutting the moon out and making it a fusible applique on top of the reworked sky.

The river was the other important part of this piece and I had purchased several batiks that I thought would work, but as I auditioned them and went through my stash, this piece of pole wrapped shibori jumped out as being the right one.  Both the shibori pieces were created at "quilt camp" in New Hampshire in the summer of 2015. 

Back to the moon.  It needed more shine than just the paint, so I fused some Angelina fibers together, then fused them on top of the moon to give it a glow.  The sky was redone with wavy piecing and embellished with fibers.  (The first go round used raw edge strips that were straight; it needed the wavy edges instead.)

The trees were cut from a batik, fused on to the dark green background, and then stitched.  Those in the path of the moonlight were stitched with "shimmer" thread for extra sparkle.

In the bottom left corner of the quilt is a rock made from a hand dyed fabric and thermofax printed with a crackle screen.  Next to the rock is the silhouette of a boy, contemplating the river and where it might be going.  The song lyrics by Johnny Mercer are reminiscent of his youth in the southern US and his longing to expand his horizons, so that is my tribute to the lyricist.

Also in the corner is a QR code which, when scanned with a QR reader on a smart phone, links to a YouTube video of the Andy Williams version of Moon River.

I'm pleased with the end result, though it was a bit of a struggle to get there!

Here's the link to Susanne's gallery page that includes the artist statement.