After the great enthusiasm that developed in CQI over our involvement in making three quilts for Making Memories last year, it was no wonder we were all anxious to jump in with both feet again this year. Last year's quilt blocks were originally intended to make one quilt to be auctioned or sold to benefit breast cancer but when all the blocks came in, Leslie ended up making three quilts from them! The Making Memories people were very happy with them and it turns out they will be displayed at the big quilt show in Houston and then tour for a year before being sold.
The blocks this year are again being made from wedding dress fabrics but this year it was decided to work in jewel tones for the stitching and embellishing and to have the theme of butterflies/dragonflies. I decided right away that I wanted to use waste canvas to stitch a Dimensions Gold kit I had of a butterfly and it is in the photo above. The squiggles were added at Leslie's suggestion to give it some movement. I hope I "got" what you were talking about Leslie!
Here is the entire block which I worked on all through the retreat and then finished up on the car ride home. I hated to mail it away (but I did) because it reminded me of the retreat. The seams all came from the little brown book by Dorothy Bond, "Crazy Quilt Stitches" that I borrowed from Debbie for the duration of the retreat. The butterfly in the bottom right hand side was a result of the dying class we had, The butterfly on the right hand side in the middle is three dimensional and was inspired by the lovely one Janet did on her block. The silk ribbon butterfly in the upper right was inspired by the Piecemakers "Out of the Darkness" quilt. The block was a lot of fun to do once I got over the challenge of working with jewel tones on a white and cream background.
So, here it is... finished! Once again, this was a workshop taught by Kim Beamish. I love her projects- they are such fun stitches. Managed to frame this one myself with a thrift store frame complete with matts that I repurposed and I am very pleased with how it turned out. I will be stitching this again because I messed up several times and want to do it again and get it right. Even with the mistakes I made though - I love it!
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