Milwaukee Lights : Four-in-Art Reveal

 Milwaukee Lights
My interpretation of the Milwaukee Skyline at night, reflected in Lake Michigan.

This reveal is a bit of a bonus round for our group.  We are Four-in-art because we started with four people, but then because we did four art quilts per theme.  In an effort to align our Theme year with the calendar year, we have added a bonus quilt. Urban: Lights.

When I was working on my last Urban Quilt, Contrasts, I thought that the stitching across the buildings rather looked like lights, before I used sharpie to color over them all.  So I took that idea and carried it to this quilt.

 And of course if you have lights at night, they are going to reflect.

I tried to capture that effect with thread.  The thread I used is Invisafil and is a very fine polyester.  I actually threaded two different colored strands through my machine at the same time.  It did work, but I don't think you can tell there are two colors, and getting the tension right was impossible. I don't really feel like I captured the reflections in the water like I would have liked, but I also wasn't willing to either start over or unpick.  Sometimes done, OK, and good enough are are the way to go.

A shot of the back.  Nope, I don't even have a label on it yet.

Speaking of bonuses: I have a bonus quilt.  My first cutting of the skyline was backwards.  Oops.

So to test out some of my ideas, I used this skyline to make a Sunrise version of the Milwaukee skyline.  Now it is obviously not correct - but it let me work out some ideas.

 I'm not going to do a construction post, as it is made pretty much the same as the last one, Contrasts, so you can read about that *here*.

Please go check out the other participants in this round of Four-in-Art quilts.  You'll notice the list is smaller than usual.  We are going through some changes and will return next year with a new theme and a changed up membership.  Stick around!

Anne Diester at www.springleafstudios.com

Amanda Kattner blogs at www.whatthebobbin.com

Betty Ayers has a  Flickr site at https://www.flickr.com/photos/toot2/with/12251011196 

Elizabeth Eastmond blogs at www.opquilt.com

Nancy Myers blogs at patchworkbreeze.blogspot.com

Simone Bradford blogs at  quiltalicious.blogspot.com

Planning the Lights Quilt

 As soon as our final Four-in-Art theme was announced for the year, I knew what I was going to do.  This fifth quarter theme is Light.  Light falls under the year's theme of Urban. 

 Source

 Source

Source

 Source

 My previous quilt showcased a skyline silhouette of Milwaukee, and I wanted to continue to explore that idea combined with the idea of lights.  Here are a couple of preview shots to whet your appetite.  The final reveal will be November 1.

This one is a bit of a test.  I traced the skyline backwards.  And when I sat down to do the sky quilting, I think I forgot how to FMQ.  Really, its been a couple months, and it wasn't pretty.

Here's the base for the "real" one.  We'll see how things go.