20″ Square
Designed, traditionally pieced, hand and machine appliqued by Sue Hickman, Berryville, VA 3/2016
I can’t wait to share images of this quilt with you! It was created for Cherrywood Hand-Dyed Fabric’s 2016 Lion King Challenge, done in partnership with The Disney Theatrical Production Company, producers of The Lion King on Broadway.
This was, by far, the most demanding quilting concept I’ve ever tackled. However, bringing three unique designs together within one quilt seemed the best way to summarize the Lion King’s Circle of Life story. I was artistically and technically stretched to figure out HOW to create 3-D pleated images using traditional methods and Cherrywood’s beautiful hand-dyed fabrics. After creating my own designs, I sequentially pieced strips of background on which I fused and appliqued the three separate images working with only ¾” of the designs at a time.
The left perspective shows strong angular lines of powerful King Mufasa (Father). Head-on, you see Sarabi (Mother) with cub Simba under a baobab tree in front of a setting sun on the Pride Lands. The soft curved lines of the right perspective show Simba grown, ready to begin leading a pride of his own, completing the Circle of Life.
The picture’s “mat” is defined by black borders and features 3-D double diamonds.
The picture’s scalloped edge frame is embellished with hand-appliqued simple elements, and hand appliqued on a black background which squares the quilt. To better showcase the picture with frame concept, instead of binding, an enveloped knife edge finishes the quilt.
Of 304 quilts entered, 138 were selected as finalists in this challenge honoring the 20th Anniversary of the Lion King. All 138 finalist quilts are published in a book commemorating this exhibit, and I am honored to have my Lion King quilt number among the finalists and to have been chosen as “Cherrywood’s Choice”. A complete list of where my Lion King quilt can be seen from August 2016 through November 2017, click on the Lion King banner on the home page.
“Disney’s Choices” will be displayed at the Minskoff Theatre (that overlooks Times Square in NYC) in November of 2017 – the 20th Anniversary of this Award-Winning musical!
It was an absolute delight to work with Cherrywood’s luxurious hand-dyes fabrics and great fun to work through the designs and challenge of creating this one-of-a-kind quilt!
I’m already thinking through the details of the next quilt I will make using the techniques that I created and incorporated in this quilt, and yes, I will likely, in time, be offering a class in this technique in Studio 2724.
To read more about this quilt, click on this Lion King link.
#cherrywoodlionkingquilt , #cherrywoodchallenge
