Not Your Normal Feathers and Flowers

STEP 1
When I saw the alternate challenge for October in the Free Motion Quilting Challenge, with guest teacher, Diane Loomis I thought, "That looks cool, I always wondered how to do that."  Diane shared her method of trapunto quilting.  The pattern was a heart surrounded by feathers.  Now, I love the quilted feathers.  Some of the work that's been done on the FMQ Challenge is just phenomenal, and I certainly need more practice.  But I'm getting a little bit tired of them and I've been wanting to do something different.

STEP 2
A very good friend of mine "poo-poos" quilting - he has other redeeming qualities.  He just doesn't see the artistic beauty and workmanship in the patterns and colors of quilts.  He also happens to be a huge Iron Man fan - not just of the recent movies, but going back thirty years.  A few weeks ago he said "The only good quilt is one with Iron Man on it."  Never one to pass up a challenge like that (you should see the dust bunnies that I made for my nephew after he said he collected them.) I started thinking about how I could incorporate Iron Man into a quilt.

STEP 1 + STEP 2 = STEP 3
Then I had a "eureka!" moment.  The trapunto method would be the perfect way to show Iron Man's armor in a three-dimensional format.  I started by going to Google Images and entering "Iron Man."  From there I narrowed it down to black and white images and came up with a half dozen or so that I thought would work.  I chose one of the simplest ones to start with.  Thanks to SewCalGal and Don Linn's April challenge I knew how to mark my fabric.  I used Don's tulle transfer method.

So, without further adieu, here is my trapunto piece, the alternate October challenge...

  
...definitely not your normal feathers and flowers, but it's normal according to me!  :-)

STEP 4 Figure out how to add some color to it.  On my next practice piece I will probably machine applique the red and yellow bits and use thread/quilting to add in any black highlights.  I've also considered using paint, but I don't want the fabric to be stiff, and I want it to be washable/usable.  I am open to suggestions!