Inspired by Brian

 This past summer we went back to the suburbs of Chicago to celebrate my husband Bob's 80th birthday.  It was great fun and one of the hightlights was getting a chance to visit with my nephew Brian.  I hadn't had a talk with him in many years.

We talked a lot about some of the connections between Art and Music.  Brian is a musician and also composes wonderful music for his band.  We had a great time and it was nice to find a fellow artist in the family.

I told him about my blog (this one!) and he let me know that he really liked this collage that I had posted last year.  So I found it again and decided to make a couple of art quilts inspired by three of the characters.  Once you scroll down to see the quilts, see if you can find which collage characters inspired each one.

This is the first one.  I call it Smile.  I followed my usual path and used a black background in order to make the colors pop. 

But after this, the adventures began.....















 This is how the second quilt started out.  It was pretty far along - ready to attach the batting and backing and add quilting.  But then - a DISASTER.  Seriously.  LOTS of bad words in my studio that day.  Check out the red stripes on the right side of the quilt.  They are burned.

Here is a close up of the melted vinyl.  I used this great shiny vinyl fusible fabric because it looked soooo nice.  I had used the sparkly fusible fabric before and ironed it so I assumed the red vinyl would not mind the heat.

I was very very wrong.  The vinyl melted - on my iron - and at first I thought that the quilt was ruined and would have to be tossed out.
But I really liked the character.  So - how could I save the quilt?  I do like a challenge.

Check it out.  I cut all around the character and left a border of black so that I could attach it to a different background.  Then started the search for the perfect fabric.

And this is how the little gal looks once she was attached to a pretty yellow background.

So my disaster led me in a new direction - a non-black background!  And I love it!

And the character has a whole new personality - with rings around her pointy head.  I actually really like this little quilt.  She is very peaceful.

She is called "Find Your Light and Let It Shine"

And this is the third quilt from the collage at the top of this post.

His name is Mortimer.  I think he is charming.  The purple bits are sparkly - and yes they do not melt!  Whew!

But Mortimer started out the same way - on a black background.  You can tell from the black border surrounding him.  But he needed more space to breathe.

So Brian!  Thanks for the inspiration!  It led me in a new direction.  Great fun.