My Brothers

I’ve been thinking about making a quilt inspired by this photo (composite) of my two brothers.

I took quite a few photos that day and loosely merged 3 to get this composite.  In the quilt I’ll leave out the extra arm and the clay pigeon thrower.

This will be a special quilt for several reasons.
– My brother Ricky, on the left, is no longer alive.
– It depicts a family tradition: target shooting on the farm after Thanksgiving dinner.
– In shows both brothers relaxed, and in their element.  They are/were both excellent marksmen.
– It will complement an earlier family quilt I made.  I’ve sized it accordingly.
– It relates well to a current call for art titled “Guns:  Loaded Conversations.”

For this project I knew I’d need something I seldom use: a pattern.  At least for the two men. I created it with a combination of computer editing and good old tracing.

Next came fabric selection for the faces.  Maybe something like this.  (Or do I need a darker one?)

I used the “cutout” filter in Photoshop Elements to help me finalize the pattern for Ricky’s face.

My process was to fuse fabrics for the features, cut out pattern shapes, and fuse/assemble them on parchment paper.  That latter part was new for me and more than once I fused fabric to my pattern instead!

Here’s his finished face and I’m extremely happy with it.

This looks just like him.  So much so that both my sister and mother were startled when they stumbled upon it on Facebook.  Yay!  I think I’m on track.  What do you think?

Ellen Lindner