At first I was Scared

This challenge scared me!  I’m not an artsy-fartsy quilter.  I don’t do “art.”  The challenge directions were:  Use any fabric art/non-traditional quilting/sewing/thread painting technique using 3 Aurifil thread weights.  Oh me, oh my … what to do?  I literally had NO idea.  None at all.  I was wondering if I could skip this challenge?  Perhaps pay someone to do it for me?  no … that’s not my style … I couldn’t live with the guilt!

Inspiration

Then, I was looking at a crazy quilt hanging in a sewing machine store and it hit me!!!

R-e-l-i-e-f !!!

YEAH!!! Suddenly, I knew what to do.  I would do a crazy quilt block, embroider it with at least 3 weights of Auriful thread, make it into a little bag and call it done!  What a relief to have a plan!

And, thankfully, I had the perfect fabric left-over from my Christmas RAPPing table runner. (see HERE). Along with pieces from the Island Batik Stash Builder bundles.

In April, we travelled across the country, which meant a few LONG plane rides.  I quickly made my crazy quilt blocks, sewing them onto Hobbs 80/20 batting. One was partially embroidered on our trip.

Here is the first block

The threads I used, going from left to right, top to bottom.

• Creamy yellow #2205 – 12 wt:  the little half-circles with lines on the dark pink and the straight stitch stars on the bottom blue print.
• Blue #2720 – 12 wt: the running triangles on the dark pink and some blanket stitch on the purple fabric on the bottom.
• White #2021 – 50 weight – the stars on the purple/pink fabric (and also for sewing up the bag
• Green – #4129 – 50 weight – stems of the flowers in the centre and the straight stitches surrounding the center white block. Also some straight stitches on the top left pink block
• Pink #2430 – 28 wt- Stars on the block the thread is on and the houses on the purple/green patch in the lower left. Also “chicken feet” between the light purple fabric and the dark purple fabric.
• Purple #1200 – 40 wt – peace signs & Happy face
• Yellow – #2134 – 50 wt – French knots in the centre flowers and the straight outline by the spool
• Pink #2435 – floss – flowers in the centre block.  This is an AWESOME floss!!!  I loved embroidering with it!
• Varigated Polyester Longarm Aurilux – # 5848 – 40 wt- straight lines and French Knots on the dark pink, lower left
• Varigated Polyester Longarm Auriflux – # 5846 – 20 wt – the heart (doubled thread).

Obviously, I used more than 3 weights and the only thread from my stash was the 2 varigated spools. As I stitched this, there was no plan.  I did whatever came to mind.  I haven’t done embroidery since I was a teenager – so my memory repoitare was limited to French knots, daisy stitch, running stitch and back stitch.

It was fun to do.  With it having an “Artsy-Fartsy” theme, I didn’t worry about everything being the same size.

Here is the 2nd block

I was tired of hand embroidery, so this block utilized most of the same threads, but I used lots of different stitches on my Janome 8900 to embroider between the patches.  This was fun to do!  And this block was sewn in an evening.

This went from doing a simple zipper bag to becoming a project I wanted to keep!!!  When I travel, I love having a little bag that holds my iPad, passport, gum, and a few other odds & sods.  I find that this little bag fits in the seat pocket and has everything I need nice & handy and it stores easily in a carry-on bag.

This is a picture of the strap and the inside pockets before the bag was sewn together. You can see the zipper – already inserted between the two blocks.

Here’s a picture of the front (hand embroidered) & back (machine stitched) of the finished bag.

The funky buttons came from The Steam Trunk Craftworks. (Thanks, Cathy!!)

Disclaimer: The products featured in this Blog post were given to me by Island Batik, and their co-sponsers Aurifil, Hobbs Batting & AccuQuilt!

Happy July 4!

Quilts of Valour Blog Hop

Have you been to all the blogs to see the wonderful Quilts of Valour that were made?  We were all given the same fabric and the variation of quilts is stunning!  Three people made carpenter’s stars – and they are all different! Be sure to visit them all!

AND … if you’d like to win the fabric that was used … hop over to the host’s blog (Dizzy Quilter) for your change to enter.

Becca Fenstermaker — Pretty Piney
Denise Looney — For the Love of Geese
Gail Sheppard — Quilting Gail MINE is HERE 
Tomorrow, July 2
Pamela Boatright — Pamela Quilts
Anne Wiens —Seams Like a Plan
Wednesday, July 3
Bea Lee —Bea Quilter
Carla Henton — Creatin’ In the Sticks
Thursday, July 4
Emily Leachman — The Darling Dogwood
Joan Kawano — MooseStash Quilting
Jen Strauser – Dizzy Quilter
Friday, July 5
Steph Jacobson — Steph Jacobsen Designshttp://Dizzyquilter.com
Leah Malasky — Quilted Delights
Anja Clyke — Anja Quilts
Maryellen McAuliffe — Mary Mack Made Mine

Happy Quilting! 
Gail 

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Linking to: 

• WIPs on Wednesday @  Esther’s Design
• Midweek Makers @  QuiltFabrication
• Wednesday Wait Loss @  Inquiring Quilter 
• Happy Needle  and Thread @  My Quilt Infatuation
• Muv / Free Motion Mavericks @ Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing
• Andrée / Free Motion Mavericks @ Quilting & Learning – What a combo!
• Put your Foot Down @ For the Love of Geese
• Can I get a Whoop Whoop? @  Confessions of a Fabric Addict
• Sherry @  Powered by Quilting
• Michelle @ From Bolt to Beauty
• TGIFF @  Slice of Pi Quilts