Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Flower in a Pot #1 - Part One

I have always wanted to do a series of quilts.  I'm not sure why.  It just seems like the "arty" thing to do to work in series.  I was doodling one day with some flower designs I liked, but knew I didn't want to make into a large project as I wanted to do some batting tests.   Here is my first design:



Since I started out with three flowers with large pots and I wanted to hang them next to each other, I decided to make sure that the large pots had fabrics that complemented each other.  I ended up with one in orange, one in light blue/purple (blurple according to my son) and one in green.  I wanted to use some of my more unusual batiks that would look great in large pieces.  It also didn't pass my notice that these are all secondary colors and should obviously go nicely.


I wanted to use this fabric for a pot, but I didn't want to use two green ones.  Maybe it will be a pot later?!


The other thing I wanted to test out was using a LOT of different sized blanket stitches in one block, so I took a picture of the front of each layer AND the back of each layer as I appliqued them.


You can see that when I started, I was labeling the size I was using on the back.  However, as I kept going I realized that all of this information was going to be lost when the flock was layered, so I stopped writing on the back.  I suppose a picture of the back would've been sufficient now that I think about it!  There are three different sizes used so far.  The tiny wiggle on the pot is a very small stitch.  The outline of the pot is slightly larger, but still small because I didn't want it to take over the design of the fabric.  

The two leaves are stitched in a very large blanket stitch.  Why?  Because I'd never done it before!  I really like how it accents the leaves.  One thing I did learn is that if you're going to go around a curve with a long blanket stitch you really have to be careful or the stitches will go on top of one another.  I also decided that while they went deep into the fabric (2.2 mm), I didn't want them that far apart so they are set for 1.8 mm so that the lines into the interior are closer together.


I love the fabric for this pot!  I've been wanting to use this fabric for a long time.  I love geometric print batiks.


Here you can see how I changed the size of the blanket stitch for the little wiggle even though I used the same thread.  If I would have used the same size stitch you wouldn't have been able to see much of the little wiggle's fabric.

That's all I've gotten accomplished, so more next time!

Suzy

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