The Process
All of these pieces have been done in a particular way. I first drew a picture with Elmer's Gel Glue on plain white PFD fabric. When the glue dried, I painted in the non glued areas. I heat set the paint (fabric paint) with an iron and then washed the glue out. The glue lines on all the little wholecloth quilts show up as white (except for the black in Tearful Tree). I then quilted them and they were done. To get the black lines instead of white in Tearful Tree I followed the same process but after washout and drying it, I went back and put glue on the outside edges of the white and painted in with black paint. It is quite a detailed process.
After these were done I decided to do something that I don't think has been done before. I decided to enlarge them and remake them as appliqued quilts, so what I really did was to use the little painted wholecloth quilts as sketches of a sort. I took a photograph of each work, changed it to black and white and printed on acetate. I used an overhead projector, enlarging the patterns considerably and drew a pattern on the wall. Then I taped the pattern on a window and turning it around for a mirror image, I drew on the back, labeling each piece as I went.
With the pattern still backwards on the window, I made pattern pieces using freezer paper. The mirror image of each pattern piece is necessary because you iron the freezer paper onto the back of the fabric. The pattern pieces were ironed on the appropriate color of fabric and then cut out, leaving a very small seam allowance. Using a paint brush and spray starch, I painted the starch onto the seam allowance and ironed it onto the freezer paper. I then had a paper backed pattern piece that was sewn down on a piece of white fabric a little bigger than my whole pattern. I still used the window as my table, but I turned the pattern around to the right side and aligned my pattern piece in the appropriate place and with transparent tape, held it in place. I used matching thread for each color. As I came to the tape, I took it off and put it on a acrylic ruler to reuse. When it was all complete I sandwiched the top onto batting and a backing and machine quilted. Phew!