Listen Louder than You Sing: Finished

I talked earlier in the week about the first steps for my quilt Listen Louder Than You Sing.  Today I'm back to share the finished piece.

I'm pleased to say that it was accepted into Threads of Resistance, which opened this Tuesday (July 11th) at the New England Quilt Museum.  If you're in Massachusetts, you might go to see the show, it should have some fabulous quilts.  It's also going to be touring around, so you can check out the Threads of Resistance homepage to find out if it's coming near you.

Listen Louder Than You Sing, Shannon Conley, c. 2017

I quilted it using stick quilting in many many different colors of thread.  One of my goals was to incorporate a fair amount of color change across the surface of the quilt. The background letters are openwork (i.e. you could stick your fingers through them). Each set of letters has 5-6 different colors of thread quilted over and over.

Unfortunately I squared it up a little too small, namely, I cut the top edge so there was only 3.5 inches from the top to the first row of open letters.  Anyone who's ever hung at a quilt show knows about the dratted 4" pocket, so I had to make an adjustable pocket which would open up to 4" in diameter for hanging on a fat pole at a quilt show (where hopefully the pole would be large enough to prevent the pocket from showing at the top) or would shrink down to a 3.5" pocket for hanging on flat gallery slats.  I can't believe I screwed it up that way, it was really a pain in the neck to make the pocket.  The other problem that arose was that with only 3.5 inches at the top, I really didn't want to loose another 1/4 inch in a facing, nor did I want a traditional binding.  In the end I just finished the edge with a zig-zag and couched nubbly yarn that complemented the colors of the quilt.  That turned out to be lucky because I love the edge finish.  Photographing it so you could see that the letters were openwork (not white) was difficult, but many thanks to my dad who took the pictures for me while Mike was out of town.

Thanks to the Artists Circle Alliance who organized this important show!  I'm linking up with Nina-Marie as usual!