Dream Catcher Quilt

My quilt guild had a doily challenge because one of the members had a couple of bags of hand crocheted doilies that were given to her. So the challenge was born. We could add a doily to a quilt in any way we wanted to. The suggested size was 18"x 18" or 18" x 20".

I had used cotton doilies in the past under a teacup block, but I wanted to do something different with this crocheted doily. I decided to paint the doily because plain white was just too boring for my taste. At first I thought of just making a Dream Catcher by sewing it onto a wooden or metal hoop, but I didn't have the right size hoop. Next I thought I could tie 4 small branches together and then sew it in the center of the branches and add strips of fabric and ribbon on the bottom branch. But when I tried doing that, it just didn't look right. And while neither of those ideas were quilts, I figured it would meet the challenge of using a doily at least.

But the Dream Catcher idea was still rolling around in my brain, when I thought why not do a Dream Catcher Quilt? Black fabric was the obvious background color so that the painted doily would pop. Since most Dream Catchers have ribbons and/or feathers dangling from the bottom, I thought I would quilt my feathers with variegated thread colors. I like how the quilted feathers looked, but you couldn't see them very well. So next I brought out the Shiva Paint Stiks™ and painted the feathers with metallic paint. That is just what it needed. I hand embroidered the "strings" and added a lot of pretty hot fix crystals for bling. I also added some beaded trim to the bottom of the quilt. Finally I used my Kumihimo disk to braid the hanging rope and thought a branch looked more organic for the Dream Catcher, rather than a wooden dowel. I really love how this came out too. I didn't follow the suggested size of the quilt for the challenge, but this is my quilt, and I wanted something that would please me.

Painted the doily and added hot fix crystals.

Quilted the feathers and then painted them.

Beaded trim at base of quilt.

I used a variety of paint colors as well as variegated threads for quilting the feathers.

The stick with the braided hanging rope (which I made with my Kumihimo disk).

I dotted more hot fix crystals around the feathers too.

There was only about 7 people who showed their doily challenge quilts on Thursday at our quilt guild meeting. I forgot to bring my camera to take photos of them and I guess the person who does our guild blog didn't take any photos either. Oh well, at least you can see mine here.
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