Help Support a Fellow Quilter!!

My friend Joy was selected as a finalist in the McCall's Quilting Quilt Design Star 2012 Contest - Amateur Catagory. The requirement for this phase of the contest was that the quilt had to incoprorate the Amish Star.  This is the piece Joy made ~

And here is what Joy said about the inspiration she had for the quilt and the challenges she experienced ~

Quilt Title:	Amish Wind
First Name:	Joy
Last Name:	Tallman
City:	Perrinton
State:	MI
Finished Quilt Top Size __? x __?:	28X38
Techniques used:	Techniques used were classic patchwork , rough edge applique and hand embroidery.
Inspiration for Quilt:	I live near a large Amish community. On any given Sunday, the Amish are on the main road in their carriages going to church. On one occassion, I saw this young man following behind the carriage on his bike. He was well dressed, in his Sunday suit. It was a cold, windy fall day. Suddenly, a gust of wind came up and swooped his hat off his head and tumbled down the road. He quickly got off his bike to retrieve it. For this piece, I tried to create a pictorial quilt of this scene. I wanted the border with the star to be somewhat plain, like the Amish, which is why I used the brown and made the stars brown. The border was designed to simply frame the picture.
Challenges you experienced with design:	Up until now, I had not done a "lanscape" piece. I bought a book and used it as a guideline for the background. Auditioning fabrics, mostly Batiks, by pining them on me full size drawing of the quilt. For the tree, I sat one Sunday and cut out sooo many leaves, ironed them on with fuseable web and only stitched them down with one embroidery stitch. Making the leaves 3 D and lift for effect. The bike I found embroidered on a friends t-shirt. I took a picture of it and used that for the bike. This project has been a journey and the boy truely is my "Amish Star".

I love how she created the leaves so they would appear to be blowing in the wind!!  Please click on the button below and vote for Joy's quilt!!  We can vote once a day!!

Please help support the creativity of an amazing artist!!