put a frame on it

this is my motto for today: "put a frame on it".

earlier this spring, I acquired this lovely frame at a garage sale for one dollar. I like the black painted wood even though, or perhaps because, it is a little bit beaten up.  I also find the gold accents quite delightful. They appeal to the magpie part of me that likes shiny details.

when I decided to try the techique of embroidering on to a motif printed on fabric, I decided that this project would finish up in this particular frame.

The Tim Holtz fabric that I chose had three large butterflies printed on it. So I made sure that when I cut the piece of fabric these butterflies would be centered within the intended frame. Also, I cut the fabric pieces large enough so that it could be mounted within the frame.

I have spent several happy hours embellishing these butterflies. I used a combination of machine free motion thread painting, together with some simple hand embroidery stitches.  The machine stitched areas are quite flat, while the hand embroidered sections are more dimensional and raised.

I had put a backing of fusible fleece behind the fabric, and although I started out by embroidering within a hoop, I soon found that this stabilizer on the back was enough to keep the thread from puckering the fabric,

this morning, I started to do some free motion quilting In the background around the butterflies.

then I decided that the whole thing would be improved if I added a little frame in the stitching.  upon reflection, I like the idea of adding frames, or borders and I think it will be fun to hand embroider a few more,

if one frame is good then several frames must be better, right,?

Chain Link Quilt

yesterday I finished sewing together the main part of my huge epic millefiori quilt. Then I folded it up and set it aside so that I could work on something a little less overwhelming. 

I have about five works in progress folded up in my closet, so I perused the stack and pulled out a couple that needed borders.

I felt like working on something with happy, summery colors and which wasn't too large, so I chose this one I had started a few years ago at one of our quilt retreat at Shekinah.

this morning when I started on it, it didn't have the wide white outer border yet.

the body of the quilt was quite a lot of fun to make. I started with two packages of those mini charm packs that have 42 2-1/2 inch squares in them, a stack of fat quarters from the shot cotton line by Westminster and a couple meters of white fabric.

basically I pieced together rectangles of three little squares and sewed a border around them with a solid color.  (in case you're interested in the math, the pieced rectangles measured 2.5" x 6.5" when they were sewn together.  The side rectangles of solid measured 2" x 6.5".  the top and bottom rectangles of solid fabric measured 2" x 5.5".  so, I completed Brick measured 5.5 x 9.5")

after that, I cut out quite a few 5.5" x 9.5" rectangles of white fabric.

I laid them out on the floor in quite a few different pattern combinations and decided that I needed a few extra pieced "bricks" to play with.  I was many miles from the quilt store, and had no yardage of the patterned fabric line with me, so I just used white centers.

when I was happy with the layout of the colored bricks I just filled in the background with the right number of white rectangles and half rectangles for the top and bottom of the staggered rows.

this morning I added a 5 inch border of solid white and then strip pieced some 2 inch strips of white and colored fabric for the little pieced squares border.   later I hope to sew on the pieced border and then perhaps add another white strip around the whole thing.  i'm not sure if I have enough of any fabric on hand here for the backing, so I might need to go shopping before I baste and quilt it.  there's a lot of white background in this one. I'm a little, well, a lot puzzled about how I'm going to quilt it.

hope you're having a great weekend, and that your Sunday is filled with pretty summery colors too!