Modern Hair Design

I am embracing the Modern Quilt Movement since learning what it meant and am now aware!! I received one of many e-mail notices about a quilt related subject. There was an upcoming block of the month using 16 12" star blocks with a celtic central design, more borders and a purple background. I loved the blocks and after checking to see if it came in any other colorways (black background) I decided to draft my own blocks and use black as the background. When I began I did not really know what I wanted in the center so I just made the blocks. I used the same color scheme as the BOM which was challenging without orange but I still like the colors. The four corner blocks are the same and a bi*%# to make. I did those first. I am not a fan of Thangles and used the easy method of adding 7/8" to the measurement of the finished size to each square to make the many triangles. I found this info free on the internet. This is much easier, cheaper and no paper mess like Thangles!! A few of the blocks had very small piecing and was challenging but it was an enjoyable process. The center is 36" x 36" and I eliminated flowers, leaves, stems etc. because that is too traditional for me. I had used four of these hairstyle silhouettes in another project and added four more and did one in each color I used in the outer blocks.

I have a short spiky, a bob, a pompadour, a ponytail, an updo, an afro poof, a mohawk, and a pageboy for the eight hairstyles. This was fun, fun, fun to design!! I added swirly "pieces of hair" between the silhouettes to fill in the area and added a flower in the middle. I thought about adding more applique such as combs, curlers, etc. but stopped because I didn't want it to be too busy-the positive/negiative space concept!!

I quilted in the ditch for the quilt blocks and did a diagonal crosshatch in the center. I like the contrast of the straight quilting lines and the curved applique pieces. The hair swirls add nice movement. When the quilting was finished I embellished with a few buttons and rhinesones to further carry out the color scheme and enhance the swirls. THe size is 64" x 64" which is large for me. I chose a colorful splashy print which repeated the colors in the quilt for the binding.

When I was quilting the quilt I discovered the upper center block had a boo-boo. I had the black and red reversed in the bottom section. I couldn't stop staring at the mistake!! I decided to make another one (the flying geese part) the correct way and hand appliqued it over the mistaken area. I can live with it now!!! With a quilt with such high contrasting colors there is no room for error because it is very obvious!!