SOMETHING DIFFERENT!

I don't know about you but I am awfully tired of showing my current project so instead of 

Sweetly Surrendering to that path, I have decided to show you a quilt I finished a few years ago.

This quilt is from a Pearl Pereira pattern called Pearl's Garden. The border is my design-I wanted to add a lattice look to the garden-as well as the beehive.  The pattern had a lot of intricate applique work with thin curvy stems and leaves as well as some reverse applique.  I used batiks as these have a painterly look with a lot of color variation.  One difficult part was 4 blocks composed mainly of green. A lot of searching was necessary to find contrasting and complimentary greens.  Below are some detail shots.

This Garden quilt was fun to make with the challenging applique, the embroidery, and the lettering. The quilt measures about 40x50 inches.

A SMALL PEEK...

I spent the week on the borders of Sweet Surrender.   Lots of new leaves etc were made and right now the elements are just pinned together.  I will probably make some changes but hope to have all appliqued pieces sown this week.  So here is a peek to give you an idea of the direction this quilt is taking.

We had a hellacious storm last week.  It knocked down some limbs from the trees and I found this along with the other fallen limbs.

 The holes were made by woodpeckers.  The holes go in about 3 inches and then turn upwards.  I am going to make a birdfeeder out of this log by filling the holes with gooey birdfeed made of lard, seeds, raisins, cranberries etc.  This mixture gets stuffed into the holes for the birds which climb the sides of trees like woodpeckers and nuthatches.  The log is a bit fragile so maybe I will mount it on a 1x4 to stabilize it and provide a secure way to hang the log.

AND NOW.....

YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN!

A 650 foot tunnel in Shenyang, China covered in living lavender to provide a lovely, harmonious, and delightfully fragrant escape from the everyday.

Happy quilting!

I am linking up with:

Slow Stitching Sunday, Bambi's Blog,Patchwork Times,  Em's Scrapbag, BOMS,

Esther's Wow, Let's Bee Social,Whoop Whoop, and Off the Wall Friday.           

CENTER BLOCK CREATED

AND I AM READY TO ASSEMBLE

I found a nice font to use for the lettering and made the letters with a brown pigma pen.  I learned how to make this lettering colorfast from Pearl Pereira when I made her Pearl's Garden Quilt.  I added my favorite Jacobean landscaping and choose flowers from Diana Lampe's great book Embroidery for all Seasons.

Now begins the assemblage.  After much thought how how to keep 143 blocks in the correct order and placement prior to sewing together, I decided to use my micro stitch tool to hook the blocks together in each row.  Then I will label each row so I know in which order to place the rows after they are sown together.  This should work.  We will see. Wish me luck.  I should have something to show this Sunday.  See you and until then:

Happy quilting!