Artichoke

In early May I joined my friend Katherine at her home to do some printing of some sort. I wasn’t certain what I was up for when I gathered my supplies, so I chose a number of different things to take along. When I arrived I was happy to just take a walk around her beautiful yard which had filled in with wild abandon since the last time I had visited. As always happens in the spring, everything is growing as fast as it can — almost before your eyes — each plant demanding your attention. When I came upon her artichoke plant I knew what I wanted to do and Katherine was very gracious about letting me choose a leaf.

I chose one of the smaller leaves because it had more definition without my needing to trim anything overlapping to retain the definition. This leaf is 32″ tall; the other leaves were 6-12″ taller. I have just set this out into the direct sun after painting the fabric and pinning the leaf in place. That process took about an hour and a half.

You can see in this photo that I painted the edges of the leaves. Along with pinning carefully to keep the leaf against the fabric, I find that this helps to create a crisp print.

You can also see (above) just how robust the leaf is. It took a number of T pins to keep that leaf straight and flat against the fabric. My fingers were sore when I was done with that.

And finally I added some lumps of salt. I like what happens to the print when I use salt, especially the serendipity of it.

Here is the print, dry and pressed.

And a detail to show the veining I achieved.

Gathering inspiration here:

Borders are added and the initial thread painting is done. (The top is not as wonky as this photo makes it out to be! Thank goodness.)

As often happens, I changed my mind along the way. I started with the solid purple thread to thread paint the outline and veins of the leaf. Then I layered the top with cotton batting and backing, and repeated the outline of the leaf with the purple thread, followed by echo quilting the leaf with the variegated thread. I like the strong outline created by the purple thread. It punches the artichoke front and center in a striking way, and immediately pulls in the border fabrics. The variegated thread, while bold on the spool, is very subtle on this fabric. I like it a lot.

I started the next phase of quilting using the variegated thread but quickly found I didn’t like what I had done. So I spent a couple of weeks picking thread out during the evening. I have completed that process and have blocked the quilt once. As recommended by Superior Threads, I used a 90/14 needle with the King Tut 40-weight thread. The result is rather large holes in the cotton fabric. I am hoping that one more blocking will shrink the holes and I’ll be able to begin quilting again.

I have different thread altogether in mind. Stay tuned.