Theres been a discussion on Quiltart list

Thread painted on a peach kona muslin...the one that is a little pink, beard is made from white dupioni that i had

the santa quilt is heavily thread painted.....all the white is a silk dupioni, most of the fabrics are batiks but the wallpaper is a William Morris print from Rose and Hubble...i still have a couple of yards of it...

So I am teaching this September 16 at Quiltshop on the Corner if anyone wants to come and join us...i do have the wallpaper already!

about faces on quilts and whether or not they should be quilted ... i thought i would post some of my faces that i have done on quilts...typically i DONT quilt them...UNLESS ...the Santa is the first intance i would quilt a face...all of the features on his face are done with thread...completely thread painted...his wrinkles, his cheeks the highlights, his nose....it would be impossible to get this look if it were not quilted mostly with the contours of the face...and theres a lot of thread on his face....

and i would i also quilt a face IF??!

well if the face gets puffy as it did on Lady Nolly after the rest of the quilt was done i had no choice but to quilt her face.

A lady does not like her wrinkles to show does she:>?
CLICK on her to see an upclose detail of her face...the quilting is invisible in this picture but does show on the blown up one.

What did i use to do it with? SILK ! YLI silk that i use for needle turned applique...I have it in a jillion colors due to a YLI show special at IQF a few years back...$1 a spool..retails for $5 last time i bought it...very thin thread and not visible...I think that bottom line would have a similar effect though after reading Terry Whites book on thread painting i will have to experiment and see if like cotton silk sits down in the fabric....i must say i got the idea for quilting her face with silk from having read Diane Guadiniskis great quilting book...she uses thin silk for alot of her quilting...

All that said for right now when i thread paint i use whatever thread i have that is the color i want...

BUT for the large part i dont quilt faces....heres an assortment of some quilted and some not....



Forest Lady featured in Creative Quilting and the lead off Quilt for the International Quilt Festival ad in Cloth Paper Scissors Fall 2005
and you can bet that Wisteria lady is quilted for the same reason...she was puffy...I mean we dont want a beautiful lady with a puffy face now do we??

The Mermaid...last of the three lady journals NO quilting

and i could add some more quilts...but i think this enough for now...