Rapunzel

It’s so much fun to include braids in my Quilttoons.  I loved this “milky way” fabric and created this one of Rapunzel.  It is 12″ X 16.”  Machine pieced, quilted, and top-stitched.  Beads accent the stars.

Completed May 2018.

Scary Night in the Country

When a youngster in Kansas, staying all night with my dearest friend meant a nightly trip to the outhouse.  I was a scaredy cat and needed her to hold my hand.

This Quilttoon is 14″ by 12″ made with machine piecing, thread painting and free motion quilting.  Hair was hand-embroidered; some fabric markers (white) were also used.

Completed April 2018.

Boarding the Plane to Winnipeg

I was following this guy when boarding a plane to Winnipeg.   He seemed to embody freedom.  This was about 2-3 years ago, but I couldn’t get the image out of my mind.  His Boarding pass is in his back pocket.

The QuiltToon is 10″ X 12″ and will ultimately be framed under glass in a shadow box.  It is hand appliqued and beaded, machine quilted.  Guitar and hat are scrapbooking pieces. Completed August 2017.

Parrots for a Cause

I made this QuiltToon for an annual fund raising event for Toledo School for the Arts.  Attendees pay $50 to attend and then pick one of 100 or more donated art pieces in the order they drew from a lottery.  Names of artists are not known to those attending until they pick their piece.  Toledo School for the Arts is a charter public school that has been rated one of the best schools in the United States.  My granddaughter attends there.

QuiltToon was made by using InkTense pencils on fabric and then embroidering by hand and beaded. It is 12″ X 12″.  Completed in spring of 2017.

Romance in the Barn

The barn is a great place for romance for all sorts of animals including humans. This QuiltToon was made to enter in the Kaleidoscope of Quilts Show 2017 Invitational Challenge “Barn Quilts.” The show is July 21 and 22 at the Sylvania Exhibition Center in Sylvania Ohio and is sponsored by the Glass City Quilt […]

via Romance in The Barn — The QuiltToonist

Romance in The Barn

The barn is a great place for romance for all sorts of animals including humans.  This QuiltToon was made to enter in the Kaleidoscope of Quilts Show 2017 Invitational Challenge “Barn Quilts.”  The show is July 21 and 22 at the Sylvania Exhibition Center in Sylvania Ohio and is sponsored by the Glass City Quilt Commission.  To enter your own quilt or other details, go to http://www.gcqc.org.  This QuiltToon is machine pieced, quilted and machine and hand appliqued.  The quilt is 16″ X 16″.  Completed May 15, 2017.

Washington Tangled Web

It’s pretty bad when you can’t believe anything coming out of our country’s leaders’ mouths.   The morning brings one statement, the night the opposite.  One higher up contradicts what another VIP says.  And it seems deliberate from where I sit.  A tangled web of lies.  This leaves the promise of our beautiful country and democracy, which our flag represents, in tatters.

18″ X 15″ – machine pieced and appliqued.  Hand embroidery on verbiage. A small amount of beading. Completed April 28, 2017.

A Little Sarcasm Never Hurts

This Syrian refugee I have depicted here says:  “Oh yes, we are very happy to be living in this tent instead of our family home in Syria.  I was happy to see the bombs fall.  And then what good exercise we had, walking 20 miles…the kids loved it.  I’m looking forward to having the new baby in the tent during the rainy season… it will be great!”

If I had been bombed out of my home, shot at while fleeing, and/or gassed in some way, I would take my family and run as fast as I could.  I would go to where there was help.  BUT I would rather be in my own country, eating the food I’m used to, speaking the language I learned as a child, living in the neighborhoods where my family lived.  In my short experience as a volunteer in Toledo, Ohio, the Syrian refugees who came here had been investigated for 18-24 months; they were teachers, construction workers, and had owned businesses in Syria.   They had to leave or be killed.  We need to welcome them and help as much as possible.

QuiltToon is 20″ X 13,” machine pieced and machine and  hand appliqued.   Completed March 24, 2017.

Trump’s Been Checked

The checks and balances of the three branches of our government will hopefully stop Trump in his march toward being, as Steven Miller of the inner Whitehouse circle said,  a ” President that will not be questioned.” What an astonishing statement!  The Courts have started doing their part at being a check on the overreach of power and perhaps Republicans will follow Senator John McCain’s’ lead in supporting a free press and checking and balancing the power of the executive branch.

Personally, I think Trump is looney tunes and very vulnerable to being led by people who praise him and tell him he knows better than everyone in the world.  Heaven help us.

This QuiltToon is 22″ X 12″ … machine and hand sewn.  Finished 2/22/2017.

Go Rest High on That Mountain

This QuiltToon was inspired by photographs (see below) taken on a trip by Perrysburg, Ohio’s  St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church’s outreach to people who live in the Barnes Mountain area of Kentucky.  As told to me by Joan VanGunten, the cemetaries are focal points of the communities and are kept by families who have been burying ancestors there for more than 100 years.   The QuiltToon will be given to the outreach initiative to do with as they wish.

The piece is machine pieced and minimally quilted.  The embroidery and beading are hand done.  The sign is hand painted in acrylic. The QuiltToon is 18″ X 14″.  Completed Dec. 2016.

Photographs by Joan VanGunten