The Secret Garden
Usually I don't mess with borders but, when I do, I end up LATE :)
"The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik"
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April's Island Batik Ambassadors Challenge was all about borders and once again was a real challenge for me! I don't know why but I don't mess with borders, to me borders are a mystery area that sometimes belong to my quilts, because not all my quilts have borders.
So, like I say to my students... You will never have ideas about an apple if you don't start to think about apples. And I started my project exactly like this, through the borders (I know... first time ever).
Most of the times I design my quilts on Eq8, but this time because I had no idea and it was more a sketch than an actual structured quilt, I decided to use the procreate on my ipadpro.
"Great colors", don't you think?! ;)
Just kidding! I was just trying to create a good contrast between the border's design and the rest of the quilt!
I really liked the piecing plan, the quilt is about 38" "square", not a real square because of the shapes of the border's design, but for you to have an idea of the dimensions.
Then I moved to my Island Batik Ambassador's stash to study the color options and possibilities. The background fabric in this quilt is really important, because it could make the border's design disappear or highlight the blocks. When we (me and my staff) found the Island Batik Basics Weeds, we were sure that it was a match!
I know, the cat has talent!
With the background in mind, it was easy for me to transform the quilt sketch into a beautiful garden, actually a "secret garden", because the blocks also remind me of the fences around those gardens.
So now I just needed to appliqué the entire tree, plus, almost 60 leaves and 7 flowers... My deadline made the birds fly away and also the wind blow some of the leaves, because sometimes you need get things done! #letsdothis
I can't get enough of this fabric combination! Ok... FOCUS... appliqué!
We pieced the blocks and background together with Aurifil 50wt and Schmetz Needles. I did the needle turn appliqué with Aurifil 80wt, and this is my "secret weapon" for any appliqué work (by hand or machine). I said "we" because my cat was on the tree the whole time :)
For the leaves and flowers I used Aurifil monofilament transparent, because of the color variations of the batiks.
For the batting, I used Hobbs Heirloom Premium 80/20 Cotton/Poly blend, my favorite, and because I honestly didn't know what to expect of the points of the border. I had no idea how flat and balanced the quilt would be after quilting, so I decided to use my most familiar type of batting.
I decided to make a "faux binding", so I quilted until 3/4" away from all the borders (first image below), than did sew a line around the entire quilt that is the 1/2" binding line. But the quilt has no binding at all, it was sew together by hand after I turned and pressed 1/4" all the edges in both sides top and back.
And here we go "The Secret Garden" all finished!
"The Secret Garden", finished size 38" square"ish"
See you in a couple of days, my post at the Island Batik Blog Hop is on May 5th! (and I will not be late)