|
This is the third quilt inspired by watch images. My father was a watchmaker. In addition to working for the Elgin Watch Company, he had his own watch repair business in our home and continued doing “watch work” long after retirement. When he died at the age of 103, I inherited his watch parts cabinet, which was organized just as he left it at the age of 88 when he was no longer able to see the microscopic parts. Some of the drawers included partial watch movements, with many of their gears, springs, and jewels still intact.
 |
My husband Ron and I began looking at these objects close-up, first with a digital microscope and later with a macro lens. Ron discovered that by using a focus stacking technique he could get every part of the image in focus. The image I used for this quilt was a composite of thirty different photos at different focal lengths. Using Corel Draw, I spent many hours playing with the image until it became just an abstract composition. I digitally painted the image, added extra lines, removed objects I didn’t want to quilt around, and smoothed the textures of various metal parts. I placed the circular image within a 31” square and carried some of the lines within the circular watch movement out to the edges of the square, then filled the empty spaces with textures found within the circular image. With more digital painting, I dissolved the edges of the circle in places, so the parts of the watch seemed to be spilling out. I added more jewels both within and without the circle until they numbered exactly seventeen. I added a few extra gears, floating in space. The whole photo collage was turned into a single bitmap and sent to Spoonflower to be printed on cotton fabric. For the quilting, I used black, white, and grey threads and many different quilting patterns. The backing fabric is from one of the commercial collections is designed for Benartex. |
