St. Francis of Assisi (2008) 42" x 58 "
2008 Mid Atlantic Quilt Festival XIX,, Best Use of Embellishments, Hampton, VA
2008 Color My World Quilt Show, Faithful Circle Quilters Guild, Columbia, MD

This quilt was born in early 2007. It was a sample started when teaching my Art Creations class. I was demonstrating to the students how to pick a topic, in this case St. Francis, and explore the topic. I created the center figures and one thing led to another and the quilt started taking on a life of it's own. I had my son pose as St. Francis in his robe so I could draw him with the bluebird. I chose the wolf as that was the natural predator in Italy where St Francis used to preach. St. Francis was known to preach to the birds and was the patron saint of nature. He was also known for his wonderful poetry. This quilt, much like the Fish quilt, kept demanding more and more embellishment. The quilt had a large amount of couched cording about the Art Nouveau type and around the borders. It has sewn-on silk flowers with beaded centers. It also has been accented with crystals in the sky and glitter in key places. This quilt was my first winning quilt prize at a national show.

Click here to see an enlarged detail area of the wolf next to St. Francis..

The piece is heavily quilted every ¼". Metallic threads as well as poly neon threads were used throughout. St. Francis' face was hand painted and also thread painted. The techniques used in this varied from turned edge appliqué, raw edge appliqué, paper piecing and traditional piecing.

My favorite quote from St. Francis is now the theme of my Art Creations class:
"Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible!"

• Finalist at 2008 IQA Judged Show, Quilts: A World of Beauty, International Quilt Festival, October 30 - November 2, 2008, Houston, TX