A Quilt Story: PM Lip Pop

I've been meaning to write up the stories behind of some of my favorite quilts. So often my quilt pictures only get published to Instagram and the story behind them gets lost or I forget to share what inspired me in the first place. Since this is one of my very favorite quilts and hasn't already been featured, I thought I start with my PM Lip Pop mini.

PM Lip Pop by Raeann McIntosh
January 2015

This quilt was created for round two of the Schnitzel and Boo mini quilt swap hosted by Kristi over at Schnitzel and Boo. My partner was Raquel, @raquelsews. She's a bad ass LA fashion photographer and designer. She screen prints her photos onto fabric and creates home decor and fashion accessories for her brand Olivo

 I knew I was going to have to bring my A game to create something that represented her aesthetic and would fit into her fashionable lifestyle. I love pop art and really felt like that was the right direction for this project. After spending hours drawing doodles and Pinterest-ing ideas I stumbled upon the work of Patrice Murciano. Patrice is a visual artist from the south of France. His work is incredibly colorful and graphic and his style of portraiture is striking. Seriously, his Vincent Van Gogh is one of my favorites; you should definitely go check it out. I found his work to be incredibly inspiring. 

Just a Kiss by Patrice Murciano

As soon as I saw Just a Kiss I knew I wanted to try to recreate it in fabric. I created a low-volume, improve pieced base. I then dove into my scrap bag and pulled out various shades and patterns of pink, purple, orange and splashes of black, white, and yellow. I free form cut pieces and layered them on top of the base until I was happy with the basic layout. 

Applique pieces laid out on improv base

Once I was happy with the results of my fabric architecture, I laid down the thread work. I used pink, purple, white, yellow, orange, and back thread to secure the applique pieces and give definition to the design. I then added random straight line quilting to the base to finish out the piece. 

close up of the thread work

 

My version isn't as graphic and didn't achieve the depth of the original inspiration piece. The lips aren't as full and some of the sense of movement has been lost in translation. Regardless, I'm still crazy pleased with the result. I feel like it's a great quilty interpretation of a ridiculously cool art piece and showcases all of the things I love about quilting. I keep thinking about revisiting this design and creating a large, usable quilt. 

100 Days of Creating Rae

Man, I suck at blogging. Instagram gets all my quilty updates for the most part. One thing I am excited to give a little more detail about is the #100daysproject that's been popping up on IG over the past week.

The basic idea is to pick a creative activity and work on it for 100 days. After mulling over all the possibilities (do I paint?, do I quilt?, do I hand stitch?, do I play piano?, etc) I decided to take a different route.

As some of you know, I've been struggling with neck and shoulder pain for almost a month. The muscles in my right shoulder have been in constant spasm and have caused me tremendous pain for some time.  My chiropractor thinks it's 100% stress induced. I think she's probably right. I've been incredibly unhappy in my work, I'm tired all the time, I have little patience for my family, and I've become increasingly cynical in my dealings with others. Dr. D  has recommended that I find ways to intentionally relax and reduce my stress.

To that end, I have decided to spend my time with the #100daysproject creating a better, happier, and more connected version of myself. My IG hashtag for this project is #100DaysofCreatingRae. I know that historically my happiness stems from a sense of creativity, compassion, feeling interconnected with others, active learning, and living out goodwill. Therefore, I resolve to spend these 100 days creating art, reading, praying, doing yoga, playing with my children, doing community service, reconnecting with my husband, cooking, simplifying, and cultivating a greater compassion for others.

I anticipate that this is going to be extremely hard work. The thing about hard work though is that it tends to yield fulfilling results.  Follow along with me on this journey (@jrshules on Instagram). I invite you to start a journey of your own. We can support and encourage each other. Let's see what we can create in 100 days.