Off the Wall Fridays – Hibiscus

Hi Everyone,

A couple of weeks ago,  I pulled out a quilt that I started in about 1975 when we were stationed in Hawaii.  I loved the Hawaiian quilts I saw there and did complete one queen sized quilt in that style.  A special group of Air Force wives would gather to help each other lay out and baste the quilts.  It took more than one person because the designs were cut on the bias, and we had to be so careful not to stetch them out of shape.  We would push together a bunch of dining tables at the Officer’s Club, spread the quilts out on them, and then crawl up and baste the design to the background.  When the applique was completed in a few weeks, we would repeat the process and baste the applique and background, batting and backing.

Then I started a Hawaiian quilt for each of my kids…. they were two and three years old! What was I thinking?  When we returned to the mainland, those two quilts were tucked safely away.  Since I have wanted to try painting on a quilt, I gave it a try on the hibiscus design that I had hand appliqued all those many years ago.  I also didn’t want to be bound by the rules of Hawaiian design – only two colors, all done by hand, and echo quilted.  So I decided to follow some of the rules, but to branch out and see what happened.  Here is a picture of the quilt with one of the blossoms painted.  It isn’t completed…. the outer parts of the blossom need to be painted in a darker pink/peach.  Once the painting is done, I plan to machine embroider / thread paint on top of the painted areas, and then echo quilt the background.  We’ll see what happens in the weeks ahead.  I have used setacolor transparent paints.  To complete the outer sections of the blossom, I will use setacolor opaque paints because the lighter transparent color doesn’t cover the dark pink fabric adequately.

I’m just barely squeaking into Off the Wall Fridays…. hope to get out there to see what everyone else has been doing … soon.