Dream island



Almost from the beginning I knew how I wanted to translate our new theme into a quilt: I have a very comfortable chair near a window in our living room. I like to sit there and read, hand-piece, hand-quilt or just dream. This chair is my space. I had decided to just quilt the outlines of the chair and the cupboard behind it as well as the window on either a wholecloth quilt or a piece background for more structure.
When I finally started on this quilt I decided to make a completely different quilt. From time to time I wish I could espace to a small tropical island to get away from all our every day stress. This is my dream space.
I used the book Art Quilt Maps by Valerie Goodwin as a starting inspiration for the map of my dream island. I put squares of different light batiks on the center of a sticky background for the island to give it more structure and used different shades of blue for the water.
Then I fused pieces of chiffon on the water fabric.



I fused the cabins on the island and green fabrics and chiffon for the trees. Then the whole quilt was free motion quilted. I missed color so I decided to add painted bondaweb to look like all the flowers that can be found on such an island. I punched the shapes and then fused them. First I wanted only to add a few flowers but soon I had to be careful to leave some negative space.

I decided against quilting the flower shapes as I didn't want them to get too much into the foreground.

cotton fabric
polyester batting
polyester thread
raw-edge apliqué
fused chiffon
painted bondaweb
free-motion quilting.

Sabine Courtellemont-Max