Given the quilt challenge topic "Strong," I remembered the countless lessons and encouragement in my childhood home to be physically, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and morally strong. While I thought about other images of strength for this quilt, I quickly doodled my head above a fast scribble of my house on scratch paper (see below).No matter how I thought about the flags of "Boston Strong," weights of all kinds and symbols of strength in mythology, I was always drawn back to the major import of home for encouraging the strength of people, the oversized head image in my scribble very slightly influenced by Francisco Goya's giant.
I enlarged my scribble and used a light box to pen it with a Sharpie on fabric. I then "scribbled" again with scissors and fabric, spottily gluing down the quickly cut fabric for house and lawn with Aileen's Tacky Glue. The home image is neither calm nor orderly. It's size looms big, multiple and important.
After being fairly satisfied with the image and thinking that painting would have been much easier, I layered maroon tulle atop the 12" x 12" to further secure the small pieces of fabric. I also cut a black backing larger than the quilt and brought it over the front sides to hand-stitch a border. I machine-stitched a bit of everything with invisible thread and then embroidered the face and clouds with a back stitch and a running stitch, respectively, using no. 8 thread. Click to enlarge the images.