Project Quilting Final Project 11.6

I have been feeling a little unfocused these past few days, I know I'm not alone in that. I find when I'm sewing or quilting I can forget about those feelings for awhile. I'm in my happy place then.

Vibrant and Vivacious was the challenge hosted by Kim of Persimmon Dreams. I drew up a couple different ideas in EQ8. I knew I wanted to make this final project for a child at Ronald MacDonald house. What child doesn't like colour, and bright colours even more.

colour pops in dresden blades

I finally settled on a flower and dresden plates make nice flowers. The blades I used are 10 inches long, every other blade is coloured and the rest are white as is the background.  Which allows the coloured petals to pop and the rest blend into the background. This gives the illusion of an airy flower.  For the border I used a Riley Blake print called Tetris Holding.

aurifil thread choices

I free motion quilted the background with loops and hearts. I wanted to keep it simple and fast, time was an issue.

hearts in the background, echo quilting in the petals with a partial line. 

The backing was another Riley Blake print called pieces of hope.

perfect backing for a child in the hospital

The quilt finishes at 38 inches square. A good baby or small child size.

this quilt will be one of my Hands to help quilts

I will have to wait to donate it until after we get the all clear from Covid-19. In the meantime I hope that everyone stays safe during these trying times.

Linking up to
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Quilt Fabrication
My Quilt Infatuation
Meadow Mist Designs

Give it Away Challenge

Time for number 5 of  Project Quilting hosted by Kim of Persimon Dreams.
Kim thinks that 'quilters are a generous lot' and that we give from the heart without thinking of financial reward when we give.
The purpose for this challenge is simple 'Give it Away'. Whether to another person an organization or charity. I knew instantly who was going to be the recipent of my project.

If you read my post from Put a Heart on it  you know I had a friend who was in hospice. She has since passed away I am also friends with her older sister, we are both quilters and have a love of flowers. An idea for what what I was going to make blossomed.

printed on EQ printables

I played around in my graphics program with the fonts to get an arrangement of lettering I liked. Each line is a different font. I printed it using EQ printable fabric, I have used it in the past with good results. I stitched a cotton print to make it large enough to add the flowers, as the EQ fabric is stiffer until washed. Plus I wasn't sure how fusing the flowers to it would work.

For the flowers I used Steam-A-Seam 2 lite and cut out a variety of floral fabrics to get a pleasing arrangement. I love my Karen Kay Buckley scissors when doing fine detail cutting. 

I tried tea dying the EQ printable side but it didn't work the way I wanted.

I then used Superior's Mono-Poly invisible thread and the buttonhole stitch to stitch the flowers on after fusing them. My friends favourite colour is blue. I did a little bit of thread sketching on the flowers.

a selection of threads I used for thread sketching and fmqing

I free motion quilted the floral side with bubbles and swirls. I echoed around the wording. 

I do like art quilting and enjoyed making this one. I hope my friend likes it to. 

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Birds in the Air x 4

Project Quilting 11.4 challenge is to use the 'Birds in the Air' block.  It’s two sizes of triangles, combined for a square block you must either use or reinterpret this traditional block. I did indeed reinterpret the block and it meets the requirements of two sizes of triangles. I used four blocks in my table topper.

I was short on time and only started making the topper yesterday at 9:30 AM. I just finished binding it this morning. I don't think I have ever made anything this fast before. Not bad considering I wasn't sure what to make.

An inkling of an idea started when I took a look through my collection of HSTs they do come in handy, and this was one of those times.

An Hst with side triangles, love those batiks

I started with a 3 1/2'' HST added triangles from a 3 7/8'' cut in half diagonally on each side.

all lined up to cut off those dog ears

I do like to trim off the dog ears and just line up the 45 degree line along the seam line and trim those dog ears off. This works for any size hst and triangle, at the moment I'm at a loss as to what you call this piece. Any suggestions?

Add a triangle a 6 7/8'' square cut in half diagonally to above unit. I went a step further to add interest I added a square to the bottom of the larger triangle sewing diagonally across the square. Trim and press.

I used my creative license to adapt the Birds in the Air block

A couple layouts with and without my adaption.

option #1. Not feeling it. This was before I added the bottom triangle

option #2 has promise but still not quite there yet

auditioning thread on option #3

Now this was more to my liking. 

table topper finished size 19'' square

For the quilting I needed something fast and easy. I quilted feathers in the batik coral pieces and some curves in the print batik triangles. In the sashing and borders some vines with leaves and swirls.

a closeup of the quilting

I'm ready for spring with a new springy table topper. It was a quick project but I enjoyed it once I figured out what I was going to make.

Put a Heart on it Project Quilting 11.3

Put a heart on it, challenge three. I can't believe how fast this one came together. I started at 9:30 AM and by noon I had a finished project. I do have to confess that some of the hearts were already cut out, they were left overs from when I made 'Pinky' for my granddaughter. One of the applique methods in my tool box is Crafted Applique'. I keep extra pieces between sheets of wax paper and just pull them out when I need them.

extra pieces of treated fabric using the Crafted Applique method are stored between sheets of wax paper

The inspiration for this piece hit me after visiting a friend who is in hospice. The smaller hearts that float around the centre heart represent those that have passed through my life, with the centre heart representing me. Parents, siblings, grandparents and friends. I tried to think of pleasant times and not just the sad.
Working on this had me thinking of my paternal grandmother who I was close with and enjoyed spending time with. She was from Finland and I miss her accent, she did speak excellent English but some words just had her special way of saying them. She also made the best cinnamon buns which I continue to make her recipe to this day as does my daughter.

auditioning threads, I simply stitched around the inside of each heart shape using straight free motion stitching

I am sorry for the lack of photos but I was so into the project a camera never crossed my mind.

one of my favourite scissors to use when cutting applique are Karen Kay Buckley's

I wasn't sure at first how I was going to quilt this except for the feathers on the bottom of the heart. I wanted the feathers to show and decided a stipple would help them pop a little bit.

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Linking up to Favourite Finish (February 2020) with Cheryl from Meadow Mist Designs.

Team Colours 11.2

It's week two in Project Quilting at Persimon Dreams 11.2 Team Colours. I didn't do the first challenge which was numbers, none of ideas I had were working. However when I saw the second one I knew I would be doing something with my favourite teams colours. I am a Toronto Blue Jays fan and have been from day one, April 7, 1977.

Bring on the blues and white, their uniforms are white, and blue ( from powder blue to a dark blue ).

assorted colour strips in various widths stitched in a fan shape 

After sewing the strips together I trimmed the wide end using a dinner plate, worked great. Okay I have a fan, not so sure about this bright idea after all.

trimmed but now what

It definitely wasn't done yet, it needed something but what? As the Blue Jays logo is copyrighted I couldn't use that. Then it hit me the Blue Jays are Canada's only MLB baseball team. Let's make it reflect that. Their fan base is also Canadian.

I cut out a Canadian maple leaf using leftover fabric from Canada's 150th birthday in 2017. My grandson thought I needed a baseball, so I added one of those. I appliqued both the leaf and the ball. Some simple loops for quilting. The binding is a single fold binding.

ball diamond or fan base or maybe both

Opening day is 3/26 I can't wait to see how our young guys and new players do this season. Go Jays Go!!

Are you a sports fan?