Here is my latest customer quilt, finished. She did all this by hand; needle-turn applique. Isn’t it beautiful?
And, here is a picture of just the basket of flowers.
I love her selection of batik fabrics and how she coordinated it all. She chose this color thread. What is strange is how it showed up on the background fabric. I swear it gives off a pinkish color in some places. It’s funny how you can see a thread in one light and it looks different in another or next to other colors, such as the colors in the batiks.
So, this is what I did with it. I was a bit stumped on what to quilt into the basket. There are lots of things you could quilt into it… berries and vines, flowers, etc. But, I opted for curved cross hatching, because I thought it would be better understated than too much. I didn’t want to over power the applique.
You know how I love to sneak stuff into my quilting. Well, I couldn’t resist adding a few surprises to add to the garden feeling of this quilt… one more reason why I didn’t want to add too much frilly stuff to the basket and opted for simple curved cross-hatching. See the overweight hummingbird drinking nectar from the wrong color bloom? That’s what happens when I freehand quilt a bird that is color-blind. 😉
And, then there’s the confused bumblebee that looks like it has stingers on both ends…
Or the butterfly that barely looks like a butterfly…
But, I am fairly happy with the quilted vine that looks kind of like the vines the customer appliqued onto her quilt… if I could just get those outlines more even and not fat in one place and skinny in another. I don’t know what happened there.
Okay, the one at the top of her quilt looks better. The good thing about being a quilter is that quilting isn’t usually the thing that pops out on a quilt; it’s the colors, the piecing and/or the applique. So, even though I am not as good as I would like to be (and I never will be – there’s ALWAYS room for improvement), it will still look good if the piecer/appliquer is good. And, she is!
When I first saw this lovely quilt, I was concerned about the prairie points sticking up after quilt. You know how quilting will draw up your fabric? Well, the prairie points were not quilted, so I was worried I would ruin her quilt. But, they actually lay fairly flat and look really nice as an frame for her bouquet. This quilt gets returned to her tomorrow. I hope she is happy with it and that she likes it! I was honored to get to be the quilter for this quilt and for her. She is a special lady who does so much for so many others. I hope when she looks at this quilt on her wall that is makes her smile.