I had to use fabric from my stash and I only had black and white spot. The orange is delicious and as you can see I used two greens for impact and a light brown to show up on the black.
The black and white spot was cut to 6 1/2" square… originally I was going to piece the block, but decided differently as the evening went on.
I decided to appliqué the entire block and make it into a small quilt.
This piece of fabric was cut to 9" square.
The little blue squares in the corner were 1 1/2" square and are adhered using fusible web. It looks a little out of proportion, because the 9" square is just a little too wide for the bed of my scanner.
Once again this is not the full block because it didn’t fit into the scanner…..
I cut a piece of green fabric to 7" square and placed it under the black… it gives it more definition and picks up the green in the leaves.
These pieces are held in place for sewing by small scraps of fusible web placed randomly on the back of the fabric….
I chose a backing and thin cotton batting and took the block to the machine to quilt.
I didn’t need to pin it because it is quite small and the fusible web was holding down the fabric pieces.
I threaded the machine with black 50 weight Masterpiece cotton for the top thread and in the bobbin. The needle is a 60/8 sharp. I’m going to draw with the machine…
I put on the embroidery foot (free motion foot) I leave the feed dogs up and begin by stitching the black square down.
I’m drawing with the machine, so like a pencil, I go over and over the edge to make it interesting.
You can either do that in short spurts… for instance, as if you were drawing… maybe sew an inch or two and then go back over and over it… all stitch all the way round 5 or 6 times.
To be honest, I do it both ways… it really depends on the shape of the appliqué. This technique is fun…. I do very precise work most of the time and this is very forgiving and liberating…. good for the soul.
Once I completed the square, I then appliquéd the orange. I used the same thread illustration technique, adding veins to the leaves and still using the black thread.
I didn’t stitch the green down but left it free to fray a little and add texture.
I changed the thread on top to orange and quilted the final border… first I stitched around the outer edge and then I followed the pattern on the fabric and added quilted swirls.
I changed the stitch to zig zag, 1.4 Stitch width and 1.4 stitch length and still with the free motion foot I added some shading to the orange with a lighter orange thread….
Now it’s almost finished…
I cut four 3" circles from a piece of fabric that I used for the back of the quilt….Actually used the base of my water cup that I wash my brushes in as a pattern… it worked well.
I just traced around it with a pen.
I cut 4 strips of batting, about 1" X 2" and scrunched it up as you see in the photo.
I then used an orange thread and made them into little "Things" and sewed one to each corner of the little quilt.