Pots of Spring!

Well, I am pleased with my “Pots of Spring” quilt!

It is finished and up on the wall above the fireplace mantle in the family room!

It is a bit smaller than the other mantle quilts, so I had to use a different rod to put it up.  :-(

Many have asked how my mantle quilts are hung on the wall.  We’ve tried hard NOT to put so many holes in the walls here in the new house. 

So, I found this system for hanging quilts using super strong magnets that are mounted on the wall using the Command Strips.

(I apologize for the fuzziness of some of the photos!!  Pure laziness on my part… using my iPhone for the photos instead of my Nikon!!)

I think the rod is causing the quilt to not hang straight…it is a telescoping rod with a slight dip in the middle, I think!!  Grrr!  :-(

Making these appliqué quilts are a bit scary…

Not the appliqué part, but the quilting part.

My process is this- I sketch out the pots/flowers/critters on the paper side of the fusible IN REVERSE, then cut each piece out about 1/4” outside the sketch lines.

I  then iron them onto the wrong side of the chosen fabrics and then cut them all out  ON the sketch lines. 

 

I place them on the pieced background and move them around until I have the final look I want.  Then I press them  ONTO the background.

I layer the top, batting and backing and pin the sandwich securely all over.

Now I start stitching around the edges of each fused piece- each leaf, stem, petal, etc.

I also stitch in the leaf vein lines and other sketch lines as desired.  I do start in the middle of the quilt and work my way out to the edges, but work on the appliquéd pieces first, and finish with the background around and between them.

So the background is poufy and dimensional when I start on it…which is really scary to see…  :-(

It is amazing how the quilting pulls it all in and  flat…  WHEW!!!  What if it didn’t?  YIKES!!!

On this quilt the background and pieced blocks on the edges are all stippled with a fairly small design!    And when it’s laying on a table, it is perfectly flat!!  YAY!!

So, although the forecast is calling for more snow on Tuesday here in VA, it may still be winter OUTSIDE,

but INSIDE the Monica home, it is truly spring!!  :-)

I put all my snowmen away yesterday and put out my spring stuff…bunnies galore!!

Has spring come to your neck of the woods??

Feels Like Spring

I spent all day Saturday putting away my many snowmen that I put out for decoration in January and cleaning the house. I have big plastic tubs in the basement to store all the seasons of decorations... so the snowmen are back down in the basement and all my bunnies and spring things are out!

I have always loved bunnies and garden decor. But lets make this really clear- I love garden things...wind chimes, flowers, watering cans, birdhouses...but HATE the chore of gardening and weeding. The most I like to do is transplant annuals into pots for my deck and front steps....NO WEEDING!! With my weak knees, the squatting or kneeling is next to impossible. And I hate dirt under my nails! But I do love the look of a wild English cottage garden. This was the front of our home a few years ago in spring. It looks quite different now!

I am a Florida girl- lived there all my life until I moved up here to northern Virginia 10 years ago. So seasons were all new for me. When I first moved here, and the weather warmed up in March /April, I would run out and buy a bunch of beautiful flowers and pot them on my deck and then a cold front would come back and freeze them to death!! ACK!!! So, now I wait until Mother's Day before I do my spring potting.

Anyhoo, Saturday was taken up with these mundane chores, so no sewing! :-( But this afternoon, I finally settled in to sew! YEA!!!! I made up the shop purse from the latest "Quilts and More Magazine". This is now the second shop purse I've made straight from a pattern that is so much smaller in size than the photo makes it seem. This is disappointing... but I guess some gals like small purses. The fabric line is "Pineapple Baroque" by Heather Bailey from Westminster Fabrics. It's very bright and springy!

I am putting finishing the crooked cabin quilt on hold for the time being. Next I am making a quilted wall hanging for over the mantel in our family room. I'm making one of the blocks in the Mckenna Ryan "In Full Bloom" quilt. The block is called "Thyme for Stu". I'm making the colors pretty much as they are in hers, except the background is shaded differently. There is a ton of cutting and fusing and then stitching the edges with clear polyester thread. Want to get it done and up on the wall ASAP!

Then I have my bare kitchen wall again where the snowman wall hanging that I posted last month was hanging, so I then need to make something springy for that space! Any suggestions for a spring or bunny wall hangings? The space is only about 20" wide but can be real long. Let me know your favs!! God Bless! Polly :-)