Saturday, April 25, 2020

Creative Borders and Binding featuring Hope Springs Eternal

 Hope Springs Eternal.  This is my quilt for the April Island Batik Ambassador challenge. 

Disclaimer:  The products used to create this quilt were given to me at no cost by Island Batik and industry partners.

 This month's challenge is Creative Borders and Bindings.

 We've been so inundated with news about the Coronavirus lately, that I wanted to create something pretty, Spring-like, and uplifting.  I pulled these bright, happy fabrics from my stash for my project.  The pink stash builder rolls were the perfect beginning for this quilt.

 Here's the entire quilt.  My creative border features sweet fusible applique flowers.  The gold binding is not all that creative, but I usually match my binding fabric to the outer border fabric, so for me this is a creative binding!

 Here's a close up of the sweet applique flowers.  I went around the edge with a small zigzag stitch and matching Aurifil thread in shades of pink and green.  This was a nice opportunity to try out the new Schmetz Super Nonstick Needles.  They did a fabulous job of sewing through the fusible web applique patches.

 The blocks for the center part of the quilt are small.  I wanted to sew some 4" blocks, and this seemed like a good project for it.  However, something was not quite right, and they fought me the whole way through.  I'm not sure if I figured the patch sizes incorrectly, my cutting was poor, or my seam allowance was off, but I kept calm and sewed on. The results are fine, if you don't look too closely.  LOL.

 I used Hobbs cotton batting and quilted an echo around the flowers and a loopy meander across the rest of the quilt with a white Aurifil thread.  

 The Hope Springs Eternal quilt looks pretty on my front porch glider.  This is where I do a lot of my hand stitching.

 Close up.  I cut the green border and the pink outer border with Accuquilt strip dies.  I love how perfectly straight my strips come out when cut with the Accuquilt Go.  

 I backed my quilt with a gorgeous golden yellow fabric.  This is the same fabric I used for the binding.

 Lovely folds.

 Front porch steps.

Posing with some graceful climbing roses.

Quilt Stats:
Quilt Size:  37" x 37"
Block Size:  4" x 4"
Fabric:  Island Batik various fabrics
Batting:  Hobbs cotton
Thread:  Aurifil
Needles:  Schmetz super nonstick
Dies:  Accuquilt 1-1/2" strip, 2" strip

Be creative ~ Sew something beautiful today.

Jennifer Thomas


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2 comments:

  1. Lovely quilt! I love applique borders but never do them. I think I will start.

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  2. This is so pretty! Bright and cheerful achieved! I really like the pop of bright yellow in the binding actually. Probably would not have occurred to me but it looks great. Love the pretty flowers!

    ReplyDelete