This past week, I have been volunteering with the Barrie Fair; thus the reason

for this late entry.

All summer I have been working on this gorgeous quilt made by Kerry Burke,

over at Simple Bird Applique and designed by Sue Garman.

 

I finally finished it this past week. Kerry hasn’t seen it yet, as she is picking it

up today.  Due to this fact, I will only show you several pictures that she

has seen and the backing.

There are 16 blocks in the entire quilt and 4 borders, all of which

has been hand appliqued. Being OCD, I decided to quilt a

different design and background fill in each block.

In this block, I tried my hand at cross hatching,  in minature form.

I marked the lines with a pink air soluble pen and marked the lines

with a stencil.

In this block, I mashed down (yes, it is a technical term) the background

and stitched in some feathers around the leaf vine for some added interest.

Because this block has an anchor in it, I added rope around it for

added interest. A mariner’s compass (large version) was added

as well. I used McTavishing on the outside of the rope.

The vase looks pretty ornate so feathers were screaming at me plus

Kerry wanted them too, so it was an easy choice for this block.

 

Here you can see the outer appliqued border too. I pulled 3-4 different

motifs from various background fills and placed them strategically

all over the border-just kidding!!

My daughter asked me: “Mom, how do you know where to  stitch

stuff?”

My answer: ” I stitch a design in an area, when I get bored with it,

I switch and  stitch in something else.” I get bored alot.

How is that for being technical?

I love the sailboat. What is a boat without waves?  The boat

received tons of waves, on the bottom and  all around the border

and bottom of the block.

This basket is 3D. You’ll have to take my word for it until next

week. The outside edge of the basket is braided!! It is really neat. And

I was surprised that I could stitch right up to the edge of it.

Kerry is an amazing appliquer. All the intersections of fabric and turned

down corners were flat.  No ridges at all. That is music to my ears

because the hopping foot on my longarm didn’t get caught on those

corners or bumps at all.

This bird has beautiful feathers and lives amidst a bunch of berrries. So I

quilted in a background fill that looks like seeds, in my mind anyways.

The block reminded me of Fall so that is why I chose seeds.

 

This is the outer border. Each border has 3 different vases in it. I’m

beginning to think that I am not the only one who is OCD here (sorry Kerry).

Did I mention that I also SID around all of the applique pieces?

I  used 2 layers of batting: top layer-wool and the bottom-a blend

of cotton and polyester (80/20). It adds alot of loft and puff to the

applique pieces and the background fills.

I used a monofilament thread for all the SID because you don’t have to

keep changing thread colors and if you make a mistake ( and accidentally

quilt on the applique piece)you can’t really see it that much so you don’t

have to pick it out and fix that loose stitch on the back.  Yeah!!

Win -win all way round.

Next week I won’t be posting but I will show you the colored

pictures after that. This quilt is a work of love and art.

Have a great week!