WIP Wednesday - May 22

What have I been up to the last few weeks? My sewing machine was in for a clean and a service while I was away to Beautiful British Columbia to have a little holiday and spend some time at Quilt Canada BC in Penticton.

Fruit trees were blooming in Cranbrook!

Roses were blooming in Penticton!

The scenery was awesome! It was great to see the green leaves and the fruit blossoms! In Calgary, the leaves were not quite out yet when we left. The wines we tasted along the way were delicious! And the quilts were inspiring! I'll be sharing some of those over the next week or so.

I signed up for a class at Quilt BC with Elizabeth Spannring called  "Focus on Feathers". This little quilt on the left is the project we worked on. Before starting on marking our quilt with the feather design, we had a little bit of a trunk show by Elizabeth. Her whole-cloth quilts are amazing. Check her quilts out at http://www.elizabethspannring.com/



We used stencils to mark our patterns onto our fabrics. I brought a dark red tone on tone and the blue marker didn't show, so I ended up using a piece of pale yellow fabric for my top.

Tracing the quilting design

Then it was time for the trapunto layer. We could use a poly batt and stitch around the outline of the design elements with water soluable thread, cut away the excess, quilt and then dissolve the thread to get that classic puffy look you see in Elizabeth's quilt. OR we could use a layer of wool batt directly under the quilt top (along with a thin cotton batting under that), quilt the design and the wool would flatten in the heavily quilted areas and puff in the feathered area. I chose to use the wool batting.

Following the lines!

 After some practice on a sample piece, I went to work on the real project piece! Following the lines was a bit tricky at first, but was easier as I kept at it!

So far, so good!

 I was happy to have completed most of my quilt top during class. Just a little stippling to do in the between spaces and I'll be done!

A little water takes away the blue marker!

 And the feathers look pretty decent once the blue marker was erased with a little water.

Look for a few feathers and other designs on upcoming quilts - it takes a bit longer than the free-hand meandering patterns I do right now, but I think it will add a whole new dimension to my quilts!

--Ann

PS. Linking up with:
Quiltsy WIP and Whatnots
The Needle and Thread Network WIP Wednesday #91