New Quilt: Boxelder Bugs

 

The current call theme for our art quilt group 4 Common Corners is "The Way We Were."  Our members are taking all kinds of interpretations of the theme.  I originally thought about making another in my series of New Mexico high desert inspired pieces, but I've done a lot of those, and I was really feeling in the mood for something bold and graphic.  For some reason the idea of boxelder bugs just popped into my head and I decided to run with it. These harmless little black and red bugs are just completely endemic where I grew up. It's weird actually because I don't think we really have boxelder trees which is what they're named for.  In any case, they are all over the place and you quickly learn to just ignore them.  Just this fall I had a couple fall on my head while getting my parents' Christmas lights hung up, and occasionally you will have one drop in your coffee or something.  They congregate by the hundreds in the clerestory windows in my parents' pool room and in their kitchen window.  They've become an indelible (if unlikely) part of what makes me me, and what makes home home.  And I figured they'd make a fun, cheeky sort of quilt.  

I used my silhouette cutter to cut out the dark bug bodies out of fusible-backed black and dark purple silk.

I also used the cutter to cut out the red accent shapes.  I used a variety of reds and dark pinks, including some of my handpainted fabrics to give some color variety.  The cutter did fantastic with regards to cutting the teeny legs (each bug is about 4-5" long but the legs are very skinny).  However, when I peeled them off the sticky mat, lots of the legs and antennae broke.  You can see some with missing or broken legs in the picture below.

I cut out about 60ish bugs altogether; it was fun to have them piling up in my studio.

I decided I wanted some of the bugs on a dark background and some on a light background, so I pieced together this piece of grey polyester dress lining with two layers of light lilac organza.  The organza was fine (if a bit slippery) but the grey fabric shrank when it was ironed (which was less than ideal since the bugs were fusible).  I tried to iron it to pre-shrink before sewing it together to the purple and it worked ok.  After that it was just a matter of laying out the bugs!

I knew that with the skinniness and brokenness of the bug legs I'd need to cover the whole thing with a layer of tulle, so I auditioned several different colors.  For perhaps the first time ever, I decided that the maroon tulle made the whole thing too pink (you can see it draped over the top of the quilt in the picture below), so I went with the black tulle (draped over the bottom half).

Come back later this week to see the quilting and the finished piece.