Flowers in the Snow

A FRIDAY FINISH !! My friend Judy told me recently she could not think of working on anything with SNOW in the name after the long winter she had! I think of all the spring gardens that were dreamt about while the snow was drifting everywhere.

I think I will call my finished project Flowers in the Snow!

The project is called Snowdrift; from Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr of Modern quilt Studio; Modern Quilts Illustrated # 5

Bill Kerr taught a class at Ocean Waves Quilt Guild in Lewes Delaware on June 3rd, 2014. And yes…I finished it before the month was over….(I know, I can’t believe it!)

The quandary is how do I use this???

Snowdrift (UPSIDE DOWN) on the rocker….the drifts are supposed to be in the lower right corner of each block…right now it looks like fans!

Finished dimension is 28 1/2 ” wide by 72″ long.

Snow drift on the porch rail

The dining room table is 79″ x 40″ and as you can see, it FILLS the space!

On the dining room table…again, viewed f rom the “wrong end”…but then, won’t somebody always be looking at it the “wrong way”?

Thinking about putting a hanging sleeve on the back. I would have to hang it at the same level as the living room window frame , so it just “skims” the top of one of the tables. It is really long. (Not Bill Kerr’s fault, mine alone!)

This is what happens when you sew with no purpose I guess! I signed up for the class, took 20 fat quarters with me, and Bill Kerr helped me pick the ones that looked best together. I was limited on blocks because of the amount you could get from 1 fat quarter. So, this is what I ended up with after playing with it on the design wall for 2 weeks. It did shrink down a little with the quilting and the washing, but now, I don’t know what to think. Throw a set of candlesticks on and leave it be, or sew the hanging sleeve on and have a wall hanging. I have picked a place so wondering what you think!

Had some fun with the quilting and binding. Used quilting stitch # 132 on my Janome 8900. It is a bit of loop squiggle loop.

close up of the stitch I used for quilting.

I love playing with the stitches my machine makes

The back. Used the same white fabric with tone on tone flower. Bobbin thread was white. Top thread was a variegated thread from Superior; Fantastico # 5021 – green purple and aqua. It does peak thru on the back a bit.

The thread I quilted with on top is Superior Thread Fantastico # 5021 – Batik Blue. (Fantastico #40 Premium High Strength Variegated Trilobal Polyester. ) Officially it is Purple-Green-Aqua. ( http://www.superiorthreads.com/shop/product/fantastico-5021-batik-blue-500-yds-polyester-thread/ )

My bobbin thread is by Thread Art, 60 wt weight. I use this in my embroidery machine but I love quilting with it. Less times of filling the bobbin!!

Did you notice my scrappy binding? Not much left of those fat quarters when I got finished cutting 2.5″ strips from them. I think I managed 2 strips from each fat quarter of left over fabric. I have 1 strip left over after attaching the binding and HAND SEWING to the back. I know Bill Kerr, you machine it on. Well….I spent two evenings stitching it down. It will not get a lot of wear, and the hand stitching looks pretty good. I am more of a machine binding girl …especially with my achy fingers. But I figured, since it might end up on the table, and somebody might “check” …it would be better hand stitched.

Learned a lot about curved piecing from Bill Kerr in his class, and templates etc. Back to squares and rectangles for me for a while !!!

So, what would you do with it, hang it or table ? (Not like we use the dining room table very often anyway…)

Happy sewing.