My "Life of Pi" Quilt...

In 2004, I received this book as a Christmas gift from one of our sons and his family. I opened the cover, and from the very first page I was pulled into this wonderful story. In fact, I enjoyed the book so much that I decided to make a quilt.

Now, understand that I only made my first real quilt in 2002, and I was quite happy to enjoy my first quilt for quite a while before making a second. So, designing, choosing and creating this quilt in 2004 was a real undertaking for  me. I was determined to "make it work", so I individually cut blocks, sewed (and frogged) and kept at it until I finished it.

I had so much fun choosing fabrics that represented images, places, and characters in the book. The book was teeming with images that came to life in my mind: fire coral, a zebra, a tiger, sea turtles and schools of fish. Every single fabric used was significant to the book.

When I was finished all the piecing, I added five photo blocks (and the label) to the quilt before it was machine quilted by a local long-arm quilter, Jane Schurr. The first time I washed my quilt, all the color bled out of the photos and I was the only one who knew what they represented. I could have cried! I've learned so much since then. The only image that stayed true was my quilt label.

The book has recently been made into a movie (which debuts in November), so this week I finally decided to grit my teeth and fix my Pi quilt.

Remember that all of my images were sewn to the quilt before it went to the long-arm, so all of the bobbin threads were between the front fabric and the batting. I also chose to sew them on using an intricate vine pattern, rather than a simple straight stitch, so, yeah...frogging these stitches took me the better part of one and a half days.

After I removed all the faded images, I went back to my printer and generated all new images that are represented in the book, but weren't represented in the fabric - a hyena...

and flying fish..

 ...meerkats, and

...a female orangutan. Of course, the center of my quilt, is the boat with the main character, adrift in a small boat on a vast ocean, which was a scanned image from the book's cover. (You can see it in the third photograph above.)

When my quilt is washed again, I'll treat it first with Retayne© to set the ink in the photo blocks. This isn't going to happen again! I can cuddle under this quilt when the movie hits PayPerView and know that my quilt will now last for a long, long time.

Before I close today, I just want to remind you that next Monday is Memory Lane Monday. I'm going to share images and stories of Halloweens past. I hope you'll come back to join me, and if you have a story to share on your own blog, feel free to link back here so we can read along.