Grant O’Rourke

Grant O’Rourke.  Actor. International playboy. Or, fancy waiter.

I wouldn’t know about the last two things, but I am aware of the first.

 

Grant first posted this photo on Twitter. I do not own the photo. I freely admit to having borrowed it for this particular project. When I first mentioned I was going to do this, I gave Mr. O’Rourke about an hour or so to tell me “No” or “Don’t”, or, whatever way he may indicate that he didn’t want his image utilized.

To be blunt, I really like this picture. It’s playful and fun. When I saw it, the first thing I wanted to do, once I got done chuckling, was see if I could translate it into fabric. It’s not the sort of photo I usually prefer to work with, but it had a lot of potential. (Ok, so maybe the twinkling eyes had a lot to do with it. I have no issues admitting I’m a fan.)

I hesitated to get started… like 20 minutes or so. Once I had the image processed, it was little matter to decide how large of a quilt it would end up being. Mostly, I wanted to get the entire piece done before the end of the week. Why? Just to see if I could do it. Plus, I still wanted the image to be fairly fresh in Mr. O’Rourke’s mind when I posted the final results.

I knew I wasn’t going to make this a large quilt. I wanted something along the idea of an “average” painting size. No offense to Mr. O’Rourke; the idea of his face being big enough to fit my bed seemed a bit excessive. (And a whole lot creepy.)

As with any art quilt I make, I start with putting a background fabric on my design wall. Knowing that it’s not likely to ever be seen, I used a random chunk of light fabric I had. I knew, from my base pattern, that there were going to be quite a few different shades of darks to work with, minimal lights, and a fair amount of medium-to-lights.

Since the face is the main focal point, that’s where I started. 

I was right about here, when I posted the photo on Twitter that late afternoon/early evening. Mr. O’Rourke’s response the next morning was very gracious and kind.   

The next morning, I ran into a bit of snag. His ear didn’t want to shape up, and the colors I was using were off. It seemed to throw that part of the image off-kilter. A little more playing, a lot more cutting, and a bit of fidgeting and futzing soon had this fixed. However, I did manage to get the twinkle in his eyes.  

To give you some kind of idea of how small some of these pieces are: 

By the time I was ready to call it a day, I’d made a lot of progress. I wasn’t too happy with the last piece I’d pinned up, but I was getting too tired to think about how I was going to fix it. Tomorrow would be another day. 

Unfortunately for me, I woke up way too early the next morning. On the upside, it did give me a lot of time to cut fabrics. I recut the one piece I wasn’t happy with. I’m much happier with the change. 

It would soon be time to start working on the “big” pieces, the ones that would end up framing the image. It was at this particular point, I started to figure out I had a problem on my hands. Granted, I was tickled with how well Mr. O’Rourke’s picture was coming together. Enough so to send him a tweet about it and shortly thereafter, this photo. 

The problem I was having? My registration lines had shifted. Pieces that should have fit together like a jigsaw puzzle had gaping areas around them. Something had to be done. The more pieces I was making, the worse it got. There’s only one way I know of how to fix it. I had to pull all the pins and reassemble everything. 

When I called it quits for the evening, I’d managed to put all the pieces back together again. I began to fill in the areas that still needed work. While the image was a little off, it’s nothing I couldn’t fix. I was well within my goal of having a completed piece finished before the end of the weekend. 

When I got back into my sewing room the next morning, I went straight to work adjusting pieces and figuring out how to get his general face shape back to where it needed to be. Plus, work continued on making more pieces. This was really starting to come together quickly. 

Through some discussions with my beta viewers (I LOVELOVELOVE them!!), a few suggestions were given about some changes to make. I did try them out, but they were a bit more than I was ready to attempt. I did keep a few ideas, and incorporated them into the overall design. My goal was to have the piece ready for the sewing machine by Friday morning – at the latest.

I’d already figured out what kind of borders I wanted, and had found the fabric in my stash. Thank goodness for an extensive library, because I couldn’t remember how to make mitered corners. (I know now) Quilting was a couple three hours. First, I framed in the overall picture, using the border fabrics as a guide. Then, it was a matter of free-motion quilting to get the rest of the pieces stitched down.

I’m surprised Mr. O’Rourke didn’t hear the squee when I cut the last threads, I was so tickled with quilt being done!! Would you like to see it?

Grant O’Rourke
Actor. International Playboy. Fancy Waiter
Cotton fabrics
Cotton/wool batting
Raw edge applique, machine pieced, machine quilted
Finished size 24 1/4 by 19 1/2 inches
Finished November 21, 2014

Thank you, Mr. O’Rourke. This was truly a wonderful project, and I had lot of fun with it.

Edited to add: As of October 10, 2015 I no longer own this quilt. It was shipped out to its new owner. According to the tracking information, it was received about 3 1/2 weeks later. I hope they enjoy it as much as I have.