Road Trip Block Detail - Project Quilting

I finished quilting one of the blocks in my Road Trip quilt, and I was so pleased with the results that I thought I would share with you the process that I used to make this block.

I wanted to do some thread painting for this panel, and I thought it would be more fun than having a straight photograph in this block.

I started with this photograph:



Then, I made a black and white version of it:



In the black & white version, I cleaned up the date printed on the photo (good thing I stopped doing that - it really does ruin the photograph.)

Then, I made a composite image by digitally "cutting" the center of the colored image and placing it over the black & white image:



I then enlarged this to my block size (8.5" x 12.5") and printed this image to cotton fabric.

Once I got the block pieced into the quilt top and layered with the batting, I did my thread painting in a couple of areas:



I decided not to thread paint everywhere, as I really wanted to show that I didn't just thread paint over a picture that was 100% color. I love the way it turned out, but boy is the quilting really dense! It was fun to do free motion quilting in a really small area, where precision was not necessary or desired. :) I did outline the photo of the two of us to give the block more stability since it's not quilted the same everywhere.

Happy quilting!