Blogger's Quilt Festival - Small Quilt - Spring 2015

Dimensions: 30''x48''
(unnamed)

This is my first entry for the Blogger Quilt Festival, Small Quilts!

If you are new around here, WELCOME!

If you have been around for a while, THANKS AND WELCOME BACK! :)

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If you are new around here, let me just point you to my main addiction: designing and sharing for free tons of paper piecing patterns :)

As you can see from one of my old headers arrangement, I design patterns for Disney characters, Peanuts and Snoopy, Downton Abbey, Alice in Wonderland but I have many many more (Maleficent, The Simpsons, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Betty Boop, Minions and more)!! Some of them have to be tested, some of there are tested. You can find them just navigating the different tabs or just typing the character name in the search box at the top of the page.

And my other recent endeavor is SYS 2015 (Stretch Your Skills): a monthly series of tutorials to practice in different crafts skills. Until now we had Foundation Paper Piecing, Quilting, Crochet and Pixel Quilt. 

If you want to know more about the series, check out the Series Page. Links to the tutorials are there... and did I mention that you can link projects for monthly prizes? Just saying... ;)

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And now, back on the project for the festival ;)

The whole project started as the "Tea Towel Challenge" (@ sophie junction).
So I got the tea towel and I used it as the center piece. Then I reproduced the motif in the main design as paper piecing border around it.
And then the amazing Jennifer (@sewhooked) started her BOM (Paper Piecing Vintage).
So I decided to merge the two and not following any of their rules I made my own ;)
So I didn't follow Sophie's deadline, nor Jen's layout, but I really love how it turned out!!

Few notes on the finishing touches:

• I was super afraid of quilting it. Because I decided to do something I never do: use all-over designs not connected to the piecing. I was afraid that my bad skills in quilting and in picking desings would have ruined the piecing. But overcoming my fears I did it anyway and I realized that even if I used cream thread, it doesn't stand out against the blue! It just give a different texture! So fear of all-over designs is over!! :)
• I tried a nice and simple motif shared by Susan a few weeks ago. I used a simplified version and tried it with two different scales. I used my walking foot to quilt this and I really like how it's soft and subtle, but interesting. This is definitely something I am going to use again!
  
• Confident about the previous design, I wanted to try a more complex one in free motion. So I picked Deco Leaves by Leah Day. I hated the entire process! The stitching was super hard, frustrating, nothing was working, I kept getting stuck because of bulky seams, the stitches were super inconsistent, I broke one needle, I hated quilting, I hated my life, I hated everything while I was doing that :) ok, once I stop stitching this section, I went back to my normal status of loving my life and sewing ;) but I guess you understand the spirit. Despite the messiness of the process and my opinion on the design (too dense for my taste), it didn't turn out too bad after washing... I can barely see it, so this is just a lesson for me: never ever ever ever again try to FMQ on a pieced  block :) if all the seams are open or on a blank piece of fabric, maybe...
  
• Because I didn't want to repeat the same design that gave me so much trouble, I started doing some tangles borders on my notepad and came up with this simple design which I absolutely love! I stitched it with my walking foot, so a lot of turning, but not too bad since the design is pretty small and I didn't need to turn the whole quilt most of the time. This is another design that I will definitely use again!!
  
• I absolutely love the 2 colors (piped) binding but I struggled joining the sections at the end. Again Susan came to the rescue with a great tutorial! Absolutely perfect joining, if I didn't know where it is I wouldn't even being able to tell (hint: it's in one of the picture, but not in this one)!! ;)
  
• Finally, since this is a wall hanging that I wanted to hang on the wall I tried to put a sleeve on! First sleeve ever and, guess where I find help for that: right, Susan again with a simple hanging sleeve tutorial!

This is one of my few finishes, and I am very happy I could share it with all of you today!!
If you want to check out more wonderful small quilts, check out the blogger's quilt festival!!

If you have any comment, I would love to hear!!!
If you want to suggest a name for it, that would be great ;)