Quilt Alliance 2012 Contest Entry - Part 2

After many drawings of ideas of what to do for this contest, I decided that I since my life has changed so dramatically in the last six months, with my parents both passing away, that I would find inspiration there.  I love to write and am the family historian and holder of all photographs.  The phrase "Home is where you story begins" has been tugging at my sleeve for quite some time.  I asked myself 'what if I made a typewriter out of fabric?'  I built the typewriter on a Goddess Sheet made by Mistyfuse.It is made with black and white fabrics, some being from Moda from a pack that I received from the Quilt Alliance. 

The great part about building the typewriter on the Goddess Sheet, is that I could move it around on the background, while I decided what it's perfect placement would be.  The keys were made on a commercial fabric with ecru text, hand drawn with a Pentel Gel Pen for fabric. The fabric was Mistyfused ahead of time, and fussy cut with my trusty Havel's sewing scissors.

I backed the art quilt with a larger piece of wool blended felt. I started with sewing the typewriter down with a free motion foot, through all of the layers.  Around every key, so they would 'pop' out.

Free motion zig zag to sew the zipper trim around the edges.  The perfect touch!

I turn over my quilt to see where the next stitches should be, or what I missed, the first time around.

I am adding some FMQ'ing to the existing background, so that everything is secure to the backing.

You can see the stitching from the back.

Detail of the house on top.  It has hidden words on the house.  Text transferred to chiffon, and added to the steam coming out of the coffee cup.

A closer look at the keyboard, and the fabrics that were used to create this vintage typewriter.  I think that emotional work is the most rewarding, and this was a labor of love to create.  Measurements 15 wide by 19.5 high.

home is where your story begins