Guys guys guys. I have some bombshell sisters, let me tell you. I happened to snap a photo of one of them in a car during a family trip about eight years ago, and it’s one of my favorite photos that I’ve taken despite its questionable quality. The expression I captured is reminiscent of those that she blesses me with after I make a truly horrendous pun. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I do not remember what caused her to make this face. It’s more fun to make up new stuff, honestly.

I don’t know what it was about this photo that screamed “I COULD BE A QUILT” but I somehow got that message and began working on it about three years ago. Inspired by quilter and fabric artist Susan Carlson, I first traced this photo into a value line drawing, which I blew up and then traced onto fabric backing.

Once I had the fabric backing with the guide line drawing on it, I just started cutting up pieces of fabric, matching value, clearly not worrying too much about realistic human coloring. Once I was finished with her face, it became clear that trying to piece the car window background would just be distracting. What did she really need? The fabric version of museum fine art treatment, folks – a smoky background and a huge-ass gilded frame.

Free motion quilting is so joyous. After putting in the feather background and border details, it had really tightened up in places, and so required blocking (quilter code for applying water and stretching) which was stressful, but yielded beautiful results.

I had so much fun with this, and am pretty happy with the way it turned out. I plan to hang this on the wall in our house so that any time I need a pick-me up during these long quarantine days, I can look up at this quilt and feel like I’ve just made the world’s most lame mom joke.

P.S. My greatest validation for the quality of my sister’s likeness came when I showed it to my 1.5 year old, who exclaimed “Dudu!” which is what he calls this particular aunt. Success is mine.