Thanksgiving quilt painted

My friend has a Gammill Statler longarm and she used this computerized design to make this top.  She asked me for help painting the leaves and pumpkins and we had so much fun painting this together.   Our skills are novice at best, but I think it came out pretty.

We used Inktense pencils and Linda Poole's textile medium to keep the paint from bleeding all over the quilt.  We used up all of Linda Poole's textile medium and went to her website to get some more, but couldn't find it anywhere.  I got it from a class with her last Spring.  So if anyone knows where to get more, please let me know.  

I went almost all summer without making a portrait quilt, just too many other projects to do.  I have been wanting to make a quilt with this photo of my granddaughter Kiara for two years.

This was taken at the Phoenix Wildlife park on Christmas Eve 2 yrs ago.  We were in the petting zoo when this male turtle started loudly humping this female.  I want to call this quilt, "Gigi, What Are They Doing?"

Here are the fused pieces where I am trying out backgrounds.  I went for a different bkgd, I will share it soon.  Her hair is from two pieces of wood fabric that I had in my stash.   

I was amazed at how joyous I was to get back into portrait quilting.  I was excited for days to see the outcome.  If you haven't tried this, you'll be amazed at how fun and fulfilling it is. 

The pieces are lifesized, approximately anyway.  And they will come to life a lot more when I thread sketch and quilt them.  I can't wait to get to the stitching.  I think I'll add some grass and boulders first (oh yes and shadows), even though there weren't any in the original photo.  

I think I need to keep doing these projects on the side of my free motion quilting projects all the time.  I have several other photos that I want to create pictorial quilts out of.

My new Innova is awaiting the Lightning stitch upgrade that I bought in Houston last week.  I am eagerly awaiting that plus the new hook and training session  that I will take while there.  Have a great day, Karen

"I always believed no matter where you are, as long as you're doing what you love doing, you're going to be happy. "Roberto Alomar
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