"Love" art quilt

I started making this journal-sized (8.5 X 11 inches) art quilt awhile ago. I wanted to make something totally out of my normal comfort zone of traditional quilts and crazy quilts. Last week, my husband cut a dowel for me so I could hang it up in the kitchen.

I loosely based the design on a page of "The Book of Kells", an illuminated manuscript of the four Gospels which was made sometime between the 7th and 10th centuries. I saw a few pages from this awesome book when we were in Ireland in 2008. I was so enamored with the Book of Kells, I bought a souvenir book with lots of photos.

For the background of this little quilt, I used some gold paint on muslin fabric. At this point I layered on batting and quilted straight horizontal lines. Then I layered on a few different red and gold fabrics. The two gold crosses are made from Angelina, with a button in the center of each. The red circle is actually a Bounce dryer sheet that I washed several times then painted with red acrylic paint. I beaded two lines from the red velveteen piece down to the red circle.

The verse is printed on Extravorganza. For the letter "G" I used foil paper in a method described by Deborah Boschert in the February/March 2009 issue of Quilting Arts magazine. To attach the Extravorganza, I simply sewed six beads on, one in each corner and one in the middle of each of the longer sides. I used rubber stamps to write the word "agape" (which means love in Greek).

Here's a close-up of the verse with the foil G:

Happy stitching!