Rock-A-Bye Chair

When I was a wee tot, just two years old, my parents gave me my very own little rocking chair. It is made of wood and I still have it to this day, many many (not going to tell you how many) years later.

These days it serves as a room decoration and my handmade Raggedy Ann doll (made by my grandmother) sits in it.

When I first thought about using my chair in my quilt I had pictured in my mind a photo of me sitting in it...you know, those old black and white photos from back in the day. (No, not me at my present age sitting in it...silly!) Well unfortunately the only people who have these photos are my parents and they winter in warmer states during the cold months of the year. So I couldn't get my hands on the photo I had wanted to incorporate into my quilt. So my next idea was to take a photo of my chair and digitally alter it in my photo editing software.

I made a black and white image of the chair and then printed it onto a sheet of inkjet transparency. Using a gel medium transfer technique I applied it to my color splashed background of cotton duck. This transfer technique doesn't always create perfect transfers, and therefore gives a rough and tumble kind of transfer, just what I wanted.

After the transfer, I stitched with black thread all around the edges of the chair. Next I added the handwritten wording. I used several types of mediums to add the lettering...Jacquard Dye-Na-Flow, white-out pen, metallic acrylic ink, and black textile paint in a squeeze bottle. After the lettering dried, I added some hand stitched details.