Construction of Anamorphic Rose - catoptric perspective, conical mirror art quilt, page 1

This piece is part of an art quilt exhibition put together by Terry Montaldo, a local Florida fiber artist. We are both members of the Feather Princesses and this group is one of the smaller quilt satellites.

The theme is "Circles in my Mind". For the image to reflect correctly the rose design is morphed into a circular shape.

We have a piece of green fabric common to all the quilts.

Here you will see each stage of the quilt construction. From the choice of design all the way through to the finished piece.

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Black and white image of American Rose climber1. The original black and white design - an American Rose Climber, care of Dover Publications. This is a copyright free image.

Morphed image of american rose climber2. This is the original black and white image morphed by the computer program AnamorphMe.

Template overlay3. Lay a sheet of freezer paper over the design and trace a simplified version. Bearing in mind each section will become an appliqué piece.

Fabric choices4. These are all the swatches of fabric I pulled out of my pallette. There are way too many but I can start playing each piece against another until I have a final selection.

Fabric drawing5. However you chose to do it you need to have a drawing of the design available on or over the background fabric. Then you know where to lay your appliqué pieces before stitching. Some people use an overlay with the design drawn on it - when you need to place a piece you can bring the plastic sheet (or any other overlay of your choice, some people use dressmakers pattern fabric, some use fine weight pellon etc.), down over the fabric.

In this case I have laid my freezer paper upside down on my glass topped dining room table. Taped it down so it won't shift, then placed a table lamp underneath. The light shines up through the glass table just like a giant lightbox. If you don't have a glass topped table (doesn't everyone have one just lying around?) then tape your freezer paper to a window.

Tape the background fabric over the freezer paper and then trace the design. In this case I used a blue water erasable marking pen as my background fabric is very light coloured. Here you can see the outline of one of the roses.

Beginning on the applique6. Starting work on the hand appliqué. The challenge is to lay each piece onto the next piece so the whole section lies flat. The freezer paper is ironed onto the back of the fabric and then needle-turned around the paper.

I use YLI silk thread to appliqué and a Jean Lyle straw needle.

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Rose Rushbrooke
Rose Rushbrooke
Artist