Sew Karen-ly Created...

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Friday 3 May 2013

Sunshine De-Vine

On two earlier posts here and here I mentioned my entry in this year's Trend Tex Challenge through The Canadian Quilter's Association . This is a yearly fundraiser, with all quilts donated and auctioned off to raise money for the organization.  I've participated every year since I was a member and I do like feeling that I am contributing.  Since pictures of all the entries are now posted on the CQA website, I can show my finished piece here.  The theme for this challenge was Sunshine and Vines, and we were each supplied with 5 FQ of batiks.
I chose to depict a simple vine circling the sun.  The elements are all raw edge, with free motion machine embroidery worked to show detail.
I backed it with a coordinating yellow and blue batik from my stash.
In natural light, the quilting shows up a bit better;  you can see the feathered wreath in the sun.  The grapes have not been trapuntoed;  the relief is achieved simply from using Legacy wool batting.
The quilting was done using 100 weight Invisifil, the stitching was worked with a variety of rayon and cotton threads.
The pattern on the sun looks almost like an EKG, worked in orange Sulky.

Check out more than 90 entries here;  it's always fun to see how each interprets the theme.

7 comments:

  1. Love it.....what a great use of the theme! I'm off to check out the rest of the entries now.

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  2. Wow! Beautiful - as usual!! A great interpretation of the theme and I really like the asymmetrical edges!

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  3. Oh gorgeous! 100 weight Invisifil you say. What size needle did you use?

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    1. Hi, Marilyn: Even though logic dictates a thread that fine would use a really tiny needle, I've found that I get best results with either a #12 or # 14 Topstitch (or Metallic) needle. Because of the higher thread count in this batik fabric, I used a #12 as I didn't want big holes left. I presume that even though the thread is fine, it requires a needle with a larger eye to compensate for the faster speed of the machine while doing free motion. ("faster speed"?? :) ~ Karen

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  4. The transformation from your first pic to the last is a journey of creativity. I love the quilting as well Karen. It inspires me to hopefully evolve as a machine quilter.

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  5. Beautiful Karen. The quilting is spectacular too. Love that you tell us what thread and batting is used for your projects. That is always one of my questions!

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