If you regularly read this blog, you know that I’m working on a quilted banner inspired by the ceiling pictures of the Debre Berham Selassie church in Gondar, Ethiopia.
Instead of paint, I’m using fabric and embroidery floss to recreate the images.
It consists of three stripes; the top and bottom are a repeated pattern of squares, and the central one will depict the widely known Ethiopian angels.
I’m working on the angels right know, and it’s taking me more time than I expected.
I have absolutely no experience making art quilts and all I know, I’ve learned through reading books about the subject. I improvise a lot, sometimes with good results and other times not so much.
When I started I had no idea how I was going to make the angels, and suffered of a bit of “quilter’s block” (no pun intended!). I was stuck with that for weeks and weeks, afraid to try.
But now I finally finished my first angel!
Wow, it took me about two weeks to make him. I have between 6 to 7 more angels to make, so at this pace I will need at least three months to have all of them. A more realistic approach renders about five to six months to finish the banner, depending how tired I get, how much free time I can find, and how more experienced I become.
I’ve decided to make the angel wings in red and green, but it takes a lot of work to sew and finish each of them.
Considering my lack of experience, the results are not so bad.
Here is how my first angel looks:

You will need to use a bit of imagination to picture how my quilt will look like when finished, but maybe this will give you and idea:

Right now I’m sewing the angel to the background fabric like an appliqué.
Each angel will be slightly different, and I’m creating them freely, without a predefined pattern much in the way they look in the original painting:

 
What do you think?

AliciA