Tag Archives: free motion quilting

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When I heard that this week's Project QUILTING challenge was Vibrant and Vivacious I immediately thought rainbow.

Before I forget, this is your official reminder that we're nearing the end of Show Me Something Rainbow! Be sure to link up your finished rainbow projects by the end of March. There's still time to finish something up in the next nine days. :-)

I chose a rainbow of fabric in lighter and more vibrant tones. I realized as I started piecing that my wonky, irregular log cabin wasn't really very wonky, but I went with it. My strips were cut without a ruler, approximately 1.5" wide.

Once my quilt top was complete, I started to consider my options for quilting. I couldn't resist pulling a rainbow of thread for the quilting. Including white for attaching the binding, I used 14 colors of thread on this project.

From left to right, the thread I used: Aurifil 50wt Light Lilac (#2510), Light Robin's Egg (#2710), Light Avocado (#2886), Champagne (#2105), Fleshy Pink (#2420), Baby Pink (#2423), Dove (#2600), Red (#2250), Burnt Orange (#1133), Yellow (#2135), Green (#2870), Medium Delft Blue (#2783), Dark Violet (#2582).

I considered wishbone quilting but opted for this variation with loops on one end and points on the other. In the end, I like that my quilting looked like a series of Vs for the Vibrant and Vivacious challenge. I wish I could say I planned it. ;-)

My quilt finished at 16" x 16". The great part about making a mini this size is that you can back it with a fat quarter. I chose this black and white silhouette fabric for my backing. I wanted black and white so my many colors of thread would be visible on the back.

Thanks for visiting. Be sure to hop over to Kim's blog to see the 100+ quilts made this week for the Vibrant and Vivacious challenge.

And on to my next rainbow project! I'm participating in the Mini Series SAL on Instagram and I've chosen a rainbow to feature in my blocks.

I've linked up to Free Motion Mavericks.

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The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, Hobbs, and Aurifil.

This month we were asked to create a quilt to adorn a table for the holidays. We were required to use appliqué, though our project could be any size. My Fall table topper finished at approximately 20" square. I used Hobbs Thermore batting. It's a super low loft 100% Polyester batting, which should keep my table topper nice and flat.

I chose pumpkin orange batiks to create a scrappy slab for the pumpkin. This included Cheddar as well as a couple from the Island Batik Clockworks collection. (The background and stem are from Clockworks, too!)

I used the snowball technique for adding background triangles to the corners of my rectangular scrappy slab and pieced in a brown stem. My technique is basically the same as my pumpkin tutorial from earlier this month, with a slightly different stem. To fulfill the requirement of having appliqué in my project I chose Bubbles in Chartreuse to make a pumpkin leaf. A quick online search helped me with the general shape of a pumpkin leaf. I used Heat and Bond Lite to raw-edge fusible appliqué my leaf onto the otherwise completed quilt top. My top stitching on the leaf was done as quilting. I chose to mimic the look of the veins of the leaf.

I was lucky enough to come home from Quilt Market with the Island Batik Solstice collection of 40wt Aurifil thread. It had the perfect options for me to consider using for this project. The first image below shows Brass (#2975), Light Cinnamon (#2335) , and Dark Brown (#5024), and beneath that a peak inside the whole box.

 

My selections strike me as an odd mix of colors for my quilting. I ended up with four colors in three different weights. It's amazing how on their own I never would have put these colors together, but when considering what blends best in each section of the quilt, these four were the right choices!

Light Leaf Green (#1147) was the perfect color for the leaf. I had it in various weights in my thread collections and opted to use the 28wt to outline the leaf and stitch the vein pattern. Dark Brown (#5024) was a great choice for my echo quilting inside the stem.

I opted for Brass (#2975) for quilting the pumpkin. I started by echoing inside the border of the pumpkin, then filled it with spirals (my favorite free motion motif!). Finally, I chose Pale Green (#2880) from my stash for quilting the background. First, an echo line around the pumpkin, then zig zag meander to fill in the entire background. I'm not sure if I've shared about it on the blog, but I'm loving my new-ish open toe free motion foot. Total game changer!

Have I mentioned how I love the gears on the background fabric!?

 

I was excited to enjoy this quilt on Halloween and look forward to its continued use throughout the rest of the Fall, including Thanksgiving.

 

Check out what the other Ambassadors are topping their tables with this month!

I'm linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday and TGIFF.

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The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, Aurifil, and Hobbs.

Star Light Star Bright was the August theme for the Island Batik Ambassador challenge for those of us who didn't participate in this month's Beat the Heat Blog Hop.

My project features the Victoria and Albert collection by Island Batik and coordinates with my Starstruck Pillow from last year.

When I choose a thread color for quilting, I like to audition each three by unwinding a portion of the thread and laying each single strand of thread across various areas of the the quilt to see how the color plays on light and dark fabrics. For this quilt I considered Aurifil 50wt Light Sand (#2000), Light Avocado (#2886), and Champagne (#2105), three of my recent acquisitions from Aurifil's Pastel Collection. My daughter and I ultimately chose the Light Avocado. (I match my bobbin thread to my top thread for quilting.)

These sawtooth star blocks were constructed from a 10" stack to create squares and half square triangles for 16" finished blocks. The quilt measures 48" x 48".

I used a floral FMQ motif to complement the floral prints in the fabrics. My backing fabrics included Ivy, Sterling, Glacier, and Shark, all from Island Batik's Basics.

I bound the quilt using my machine binding technique. I chose Aurifil 50wt Very Dark Grass Green (#2890) to match my Ivy binding fabric.

 

I've linked up to the Q3 Finish Along Finishes post. Check out my whole Q3 list of projects.