Back to the Moon

A few years ago, I started thinking about a photograph I took at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center as the basis for a quilt.

My original thought was to produce a pixel quilt from the photo, but as I played with pixellating the image in a photo editor, it became clear that this was not a good candidate for that type of quilt.  I put the idea aside for a while.

Then when Luke Haynes published a tutorial for one of his applique designs, a light bulb came on and I realized that would be a better approach for using my photo.

I used Photoshop to manipulate the image into a posterized pattern, and had it printed on large-format paper at an office supply shop.

The background is a traditional Storm at Sea design; I drafted my own blocks onto freezer paper and used a "paperless" paper piecing method.

We fought with wind and sun to get photos; this one is almost a reject, but the angle of the lighting does show the quilting well:

To quilt the curved flying geese, I marked the curve first on freezer paper (any large piece of paper would do):

Then I cut the paper along the curve, and positioned the two halves so as to mark the upper and lower boundaries for the flying geese:

I used Gale Garber's method to mark the geese within the curves, and Kathleen Riggins' method of quilting the geese.

The background is quilted with several organic type fills; the quilting on the rocket is inspired by details in the photo.

For the reflective part of the rocket, I used a few metallic fabrics:

The larger applique pieces were basted in place with washable glue; smaller details are either fused in place or created via reverse applique.

I used a couple of NASA licensed fabrics for the back.  The label, printed at Spoonflower, includes the original photo.

I tried to use a few sky- or space-related fabrics for the background; this is one of my favorite blocks:

The binding is a Lizzy House Constellations print which seems particularly appropriate:

The name of the quilt (and the photo), "Back to the Moon," comes from a Kate Campbell song.

I'm linking up with crazy mom quilts for Finish It Up Friday.