Stupendous Stitching...

After having seen a beautiful piece of art done by my friend Diana, I took Carol Ann Waugh's online class, Stupendous Stitching.

I started out as the lessons suggested, first making my stitch bible and then I got into the couching and decorative stitching (you can see some of this in this previous post). This is where I just couldn't stay the course...

As is so often the case, I started to stray from the lessons and play around with my own ideas.  I cut away a bit here, machine appliquéd some pieces on there...etc.

I then cut away the two side strips and because I just can't seem to waste anything, they became another small piece that you can see here.

What I had left was then layered over a larger black piece of fabric, hand stitched and quilted to within an inch of it's life, and then I added some beading and buttons on the lower part as well as big, fun buttons on top to create the hanging loops.

Here are a few detail shots:

 

And here is the finished piece:

Growth Over Time

Today I decided to post a traditional quilt that I am especially proud of, called Growth Over Time, as part of the Blogger's Quilt Festival. This quilt is an original design.  The centre "9 patch" of diamonds in the quilt was hand pieced and then I designed each of the borders around it, one at a time, to best suit the quilt as it grew.  The first border around that 9 patch of diamonds echoed the diamond shape to create the larger diamond that makes the focal point in the centre. 

I had a lot of fun putting it up on the design wall at each stage of it's growth, to study it and decide what should come next.  As you can see in the photo to the right, there are sections of prairie points in each of the corners which taper off from larger to smaller as they move away from the corners.  The little 5 point diamond 'flowers' are hand appliqued.

The finished quilt is 89" X 98" and drapes beautifully over our queen sized bed.