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2006
40" x 26"
Layered raw-edge appliqué, hand-dyed and commercial fabrics, fabric paint, 3-D soft sculpture.

THE THREE LITTLE PIGS was created as part of "Fabled Fibers", a collection of 50 quilts based on classic fairy tales and original stories. The quilts were made by quilters from all over the U.S. The premiere display of the entire collection will be at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

It is hoped that this collection will eventually tour and have a book to benefit Operation Kid Comfort, the Armed Services YMCA program that provides photo-transfer comfort quilts and pillows to children of deployed service men and women of the US military.

I waited a while before committing to a story for this collection. I wanted to pick a story I was certain I could illustrate, and be sure that I would have time to get it finished.

Finally, I chose THE THREE LITTLE PIGS and sketched out a design, which changed very little over the course of making the quilt. From the beginning, I planned to have the wolf featured in the foreground, but it wasn't until I saw the faux fur at the fabric shop that I realized he would be a 3-Dimensional piece rather than a flat appliqué.

I started by selecting the fabrics to represent the houses - finding textures and patterns to represent straw, sticks, and bricks. I also found a nice pebbly path to connect the houses. I hand-dyed the sky and grass fabrics. The houses and pigs were constructed from layers of appliqué. Each piece has a black background layer to give it an outline. Fabric paint is also used to create outlines and small details.

Another component of the exhibit was presenting a version of the story to accompany the quilt. I stayed pretty true to the original story, but I didn't want to include a lot of value judgments and labels... kids get judged and labeled enough - short, ugly, fat, skinny, dumb, gay, etc., why add to that? So in my version of the story, the wolf was just "The Wolf", not bad or evil, just a wolf doing what wolves do. The first two pigs weren't stupid or lazy, they just liked the particular building materials they chose...and soon learned that straw and sticks just weren't strong enough to withstand a blast of wolf breath!

Here's some detail shots showing close-ups of the pigs and their houses: