Rosemadonna

It is time for entering the Blogger’s Quilt Festival again, and I’d better hurry so as not to miss it this time around.

This time I will show you my latest “experiment”.

The working title is “Rosemadonna”, and so far I have not thought of a better title, so there is a good chance it will be permanent.

As usual, the inspiration has come from many sources.

A couple of years ago I came across a website with a tutorial for making roses similar to the ones above. I thought I would like to try them some day, only I was not sure what I would use them for, – but bookmarked the site for future reference.

Also, this spring I was reading up on liturgical art in connection with another project, and in one of the books there was a small photo of a madonna sculpture with what looked like a row of roses trailing down the front of the figure. At closer inspection I found they were not roses, but heads. The photo caption explained they were the heads of the 12 apostles, and the sculpture was meant to symbolize that Mary was the mother of Christianity.

I liked the idea of roses better.

This autumn my husband and I got the chance to go to Rome for a week.

Being good tourists, we visited as many of the major sights as we could during the week, including of course the Vatican museum.

There were lots of beautiful madonna-and-child paintings dating from nearly every century. The rest of the city was not exactly lacking in madonnas either, both inside buildings and out.

When we got home, I happened to be between commission projects, so I grabbed the chance to realize the idea that had formed in my head.

Then I could not find the rose tutorial site again, but had a rough idea of how it was done, so I made a trial rose after memory, which looked quite satisfying.

Then I went on to make a bunch of them, which I joined together, and built the rest of the piece from there. Usually I plan my projects quite thoroughly with drawings and everything, but this time I just worked from the idea I had in my head, solving the construction problems as they arose.

When I decided I needed a face, I grabbed one from the many photos we took at the Vatican, and printed a semi-transparent version of it onto a light marbled fabric.

I am not sure the piece is quite finished yet. I am still debating whether I should open up and sew down the outer petals, or if I like the starry look better.

Taking part in the Bloggers’ Quilt Festival has almost become a tradition here. This will be my sixth time, meaning I have been taking part in all of them since the beginning.

My previous entries can be seen here:

Spring 2009

Autumn 2009

Spring 2010

Autumn 2010

Spring 2011

If you go over to Amy’s Creative Side,  you can see entries from all over the world there. It is a spectacular show.

 Eldrid

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