A Wicked Commotion

http://t.co/aIiJeFWPVf  

 I entered this quilt in the Cherrywood Hand Dyed Fabrics Wicked Challenge. It involved the Broadway play Wicked and a fat quarter packet of this company's green hand dyed fabrics. I had not heard of this company before but I was extremely interested since I LOVE witches and I double LOVE green skin!! I ordered the fat quarter packet and received the rules. All entries are sized at 20" x 20" and 60% of the quilt needed to be the 4 green fat quarters and the 40% remainder was some of their many other hand dyed fabrics. I selected more of their fabrics to get the skin tones and I bought a pink gradation to get the lip color and then the binding. This was my challenge to not go into my stash to make this quilt and only use the hand dyed fabrics from Cherrywood. Also I usually use batiks and prints and this was all solid fabrics.

I must admit I have not seen the play Wicked (bucket list!) and I went to Pinterest and started my research on how the lead character, Elphaba the Wicked Witch, was different from other witches and the witches I normally make. Elphaba's dress was very modestly covering her body, it was not totallt black in color, very textured and it was inspired by nature. Her hat was very tall and pointy unlike my normal bent over hat style. I wanted to have black hair but I already used the black for her dress and hat so I went with dark brown and used black variegated thread and black fabric paint/markers to darker the hair even more.

This dress is full of embellishments. The rules said any embellishments were fine so I went crazy! I machine quilted in a bright variegated color, I added a lace trim with black beads to get the textured look. I ruched dark green silk ribbon around the neckline, I ruffled the same ribbon for the high neckline. I found a great black with metallic green edging at the IQF Chicago show and used it on the neck and the corset area. I hand sewed beads to the bodice and lower dress to add more color and texture. I used a black shimmery ribbon with wire and created the shoulder ruffle.

For Elphaba's hat I dotted the hat with a metallic fabric paint in green, added some of the metallic ribbon for the band and a dark green leather button to the band. Her face is embellished with fabric paint, markers and nail polish like I usually do.

The background has a few lime green rhinestones for bling.

I discovered there were famous quotes from the play and I really like this one Elphaba says-"I don't cause a commotion-I am one." I love this quote and used a portion of it in my quilt.

I had the time of my life making this little quilt. The link at the beginning of this blog is Cherrywood's blog post with my quilt as the first entry. I decided to share my quilt after they did. The deadline is August 1, 2014. There will be a gallery exhibit of all the quilts for judging purposes and then 20? quilts will travel to various quilt shows and the Broadway at the Wicked anniversary. I really want my quilt to be selected!!