Cow-Deer Browse at Dusk
This strange scene is the second of five quilts sparked by a find of gorgeous remnant wools in a New York City fabric store. Again, too gorgeous to be cut up into pieces, this deep purple blue wool became a canvas on which to create a surprising picture. It had already been cut away in one corner, so we tweaked the cutaway into a leaf outline form (away from a straight square) and reverse-appliqued a piece of floral cotton print fabric to foreground the forest floor. This same piece of floral print was also used to anchor the black faux suede trees in the near, middle and far distance of the picture. Other cotton prints were used to create the foliage for the suede trees, and this foliage look was embellished with the quilting stitching in the form of ‘vines’. These vines also serve to support the applique pieces which were first secured via fusible webbing. To this fantastical forest scene were added the amazing ‘cow deer’, sparked by a personal sighting of a rare white/spotted deer, but armed only with cow fabric in black and white (when the real cow deer was brown and white). Close enough. These deer are in a faux velvet, spandex print, and are also appliqued via fusible webbing.
The entire scene is bordered by cotton prints—black with tiny white pebbles on the bottom to simulate the forest floor, the dark woods on either side with white birch trees, and a row of birds across the top, in the trees, chirping as the sun goes down.
This quilt is supported by a near-hidden strip of African Sapele wood and hangs from a copper wire coated in a black finish. It measures 36” wide x 29” high.