Purple Flowers

Purple Flowers is kind of an exciting finish!  I had this top hanging on the "to-be-quilted" rack for several months.  It was gifted to me by my good friend, Angela, with the request that I quilt it and donate it to someone who might appreciate it.  To be honest...when I first opened it up, it didn't look that appealing.  I wasn't sure how to tackle it, but now, I really like it and I think it came out really cute!

I used a simple tone on tone neutral floral print for the backing and my daughter quilted it with a nice big rose vine panto in a neutral thread.  This was her first time following a pantograph on the longarm and she did great!  Another lady offered to bind it for us and we chose a solid plum binding to make those plum squares in the quilt pop (and also to make them look like they really belong with those grape purples).  I can't believe it, but I'm happy to say the Purple Flowers quilt came out pretty darn good and was a fun group effort!

We've decided to donate Purple Flowers to a local woman who is currently battling pancreatic cancer.  I'm told that plum is the ribbon color for her illness, so it seemed fitting.  I hope it brings her some comfort as she continues her treatments.

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February Goal

I am dedicating my studio time this month to finishing up Country Haven, a Kim Diehl design (pattern found in the book Simple Appeal) that I'm working up in Andover's new Little House on the Prairie fabric line.

The log cabin-style center section and the strippy border cornerstones are all sewn together.  Next thing to tackle is the applique border.  All of the applique shapes (vines, leaves, and berries) are all prepped and ready to be sewn on now.  I've been playing around with tensions for using nylon threads to machine applique, but I'm having a lot of difficulty.  The clear YLI thread is working pretty well so far, but it wasn't available in smoke at my LQS so I picked up a spool of Mettler nylon --- ugh --- I cannot get my poor machine to stop eating the Mettler!!!  grr.....

If you have any suggestions for dealing with nylon thread for invisible applique, I'm all ears!  I'm using a thin-ish needle (70/10) with a zigzag stitch length & width set at 1.0.  My tension for YLI is best set at 2.5 (normal 40wt. cotton is 3.0).

Q1 (Jan-Mar 2016) Finish Along Goals:

1. Crumb Along (Jo's Country Junction)
2. Strippy Spools (M*QC)
3. 4-Patch Revisited (Bonnie Hunter)
4. Spools (Bonnie Hunter)
5. Purple Flowers
6. Lunch Box Social (Kim Diehl)
7. Country Haven (Kim Diehl)
8. Buttermilk Basin BOM 2015
9. That 70s Quilt Re-Do
10. Rustic Stars (Wounded Warrior Quilt)

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