Arlene brought me this wallhanging a while back.  I think she

was preparing for the summer and heading up to her cottage.

It seems fairly easy to create. Each block has a black

background. All the other pieces are fused onto the black

background and the edges stitched around. You can use

either a straight stitch or a zigzag stitch. You can also use

a matching thread for each color or a monfilament thread to

stitch around the shapes. You can also use a monofilament

thread in the bobbin but it shouldn’t be a full bobbin. I have

heard that it is not good for your machine to use a full

bobbin of monofilament thread-just a half of a bobbin.

If you use a monofilament thread, please remember to use a

the clear monfilament for the light colors and a smoky

monofilament thread for the darker colors. The size

of the monofilament thread is the size of one strand of

hair. I use monofilament all the time and sometimes

you have to loosen the top tension so it doesn’t stretch.

I also wouldn’t recommend it for baby or children’s

quilts either. They may get tangled in it and it is hard

to see, especially if you are not a quilter and don’t know

that it is there.

Arlene did a lovely job with this wallhanging. I used a black

polyester thread for the top and the back. The monofilament

was used in the colored square border so that I didn’t have

to change thread color constantly.

When I quilted it, I stitched around all the shapes in a black

thread so that the thread wouldn’t be noticeable. This helps

the shapes and images to pop out a  little.

And I stitched around the colored border but not in the black

outer border. I felt that the pictures were the focal point of this

wallhanging and anything in the border might detract from that.

The border wasn’t that big anyways so you can get away with no

quilting in it, in this case.

I really like these flames. The batiks are so cool.

I forgot to take a picture of the backing but I think

that it was a black color as well.

Hope you are having a great March Break.