Garden Jewels

I managed to get over myself and get this wall hanging done this week. 

And do you hear that?  That is one tremendous sigh of relief coming from me for having finally finished this.

I have felt a little blocked with this project, mainly because I wasn't sure exactly how to approach quilting the cross stitched sections.  Even as I was ditch quilting the frames around the cross stitching, I still wasn't sure, so I proceeded to do the general meandering and quilt everything else but.  

Finally, after some practice on a separate piece, I decided to outline quilt around the veggies and then do a smaller stipple in the outer white spaces.

Well...my machine had its own plans.  It had issues with the type of thread I had switched to on the Aida cloth, and tension troubles, and generally started acting schizophrenic about halfway around the outlining on each block. 

Frustrating.

Finally, by stitching v-e-r-y slowly so as to circumvent the machine spazzing out on me, I was able to get the outline quilting done.  Then I did what any sane person would, at that point.  I switched back to my old Singer and a walking foot and straight-line quilted diagonal lines to anchor each block a bit more.

I do like the way it turned out, and I think my sister is going to be tickled pink with it.  She gave me the dresses (the center floral/veggie print and the blue fabric) to repurpose, as well as the piece of fabric that I used for the back.  The cross stitched pieces were thrifted.  They were in dingy frames, 99 cents apiece, and I bought the lot of them, removed the frames and soaked the stitchery clean. They were so excellently done, they deserved to have a new life.

Sis has a spot on her kitchen wall reserved for this piece, and it's going to look nice hanging there. 

 

(Back)

I'm calling this one "Garden Jewels."  The inspiration was right there in front of me!

Another PhD Challenge project completed—one more to go!  

I'm linking to Sarah's Can I Get a Whoop-Whoop?  Come join the fun!