I'm working on a scrappy quilt again. The blocks are Quiltville's Boxy Star pattern. Some parts were leftover from a previous group project, so I decided to make more for a small quilt.
The nine-patches for the border were made from my "leader and ender" squares, stitched while making other quilts this winter. I added triangle corners to each, using 2 alternating prints - the light wouldn't have been my first choice, but I have very little stash in my southern location. Sorry for the poor perspective on the photo - I placed it on my driveway, and that was the best I could do to capture the whole quilt top.
My finish for this week is a small wall hanging that will eventually be given to my SDIL2. I plan to show it in my guild's next show in 2015, but I will let her see it when we return north.
Dragonflies are her favourite, and my son found a wonderful picture of one, that he printed poster size so I could use it for a pattern. It took me a while to figure out how to transfer the pattern to the dark fabric. My first thought was to use golden tracing paper, but since the wings are thread-painted with metallic thread, I was dreading the chore of removing all the bits of paper. When having a tidy session in my sewing room, I found an old package of water soluble stabilizer. I used a hot pink Frixion pen to draw all the tiny lines, then pinned the stabilizer in place over the appliqued body. I stitched the wings with Superior's gold thread.
Visit Judy at Patchwork Times to see all the creativity this week!
I finished my September BOM project from my guild - I chose to make the applique version, stitching the turned-edge appliques by machine. I added some thread painting as accents to the flame and pointsettias, then did some simple quilting and added the binding.
It will be donated to the "Every Child Counts" group, to be sold to raise funds for the school the Bahamas.
This is the start of a project that has been percolating in my brain for 3-4 years.
My son's new wife loves dragonflies. He found some wonderful photos of them on the internet, and one spoke to me. We expanded the picture, and printed it poster size to use as a pattern. I got out my Golden Threads tracing paper, and made a line drawing of the dragonfly. Then the problem was - how to transfer the image to the fabric. Since I knew I wanted a dark background, and I also knew that I didn't want to spend time picking our all the tiny bits of tracing paper - I went back to the drawing board. A while later, I discovered a package of wash-away "plastic" stabilizer. I put it with the pattern and went on to other projects. I had found the background fabric and some to make grass, and I also picked up some of the "Frixion" pens in pink, light blue and purple. The pink was the perfect colour to trace my original drawing! I used a close-up picture of grass as an inpiration for shapes and colours of the few foreground grasses. I just have them temporarily glued into place, and still have to applique them to the background. Of course, DH saw it and made a few suggestions for additional design, but I think I'll stitch it and let it percolate for a while before I decide on the next steps!
Check out all the wonderful design walls at Judy's blog, Patchwork Times.
The latest tradition with the outgoing President of the Limestone Quilters' Guild is to have a quilt challenge for the final meeting of the year. This year's challenge consisted of using an 8 inch finished schoolhouse block and making a wall hanging, no larger than 20x30 inches.
Of course, I left mine until almost the last minute. I used a schoolhouse block from EQ7, and pulled some fabrics from my stash. Since I had lovely "sky" fabric, I didn't want to cut it into small pieces to finish the block, so I made a base layer of sky and grass, then I turned the seam allowances under and machine appliqued the schoolhouse to the background!
I decided to add some thread painting, so first I stitched a tree
Then I added the little flowered area......
I added some small buttons to the front of the schoolhouse, for a door knob and the heart because it mimics my guild's logo.....
I decorated the tree and the schoolhouse with tiny quilt blocks, cut from fabric bought many years ago.....
And finally the finished product!
I was amazed at how many sewing related fabrics I found in my stash! I can't wait to see what others have done. They will be on display on June 1 at our spring dinner meeting, and they hope to have them on display at the quilt show in June 2012 as well.
