Project QUILTING - Quarantine 2020 Limited Edition - Q.2

Florals

On Easter Sunday, Kim @ Persimon Dreams released the prompt for our second PQQ2020 challenge.  As noted above, our quarantine quest for this week is FLORALS.  She said that they were supposed to get snow in Wisconsin that day and that isn't good for social distancing.  Springlike weather was SEW much nicer.  It's the middle of April, for goodness sake!  I can't blame her for wanting to see what we might do with flowers as our guide.

What are the rules, Joyful??

The rules specify the following:

Whether you use a botanical subject or flowered fabric or just a springtime frame of mind, this week I want to see floral projects.

Your project does not need to be a traditional quilt but must meet at least one of these requirements: include patchwork, include appliqué, have 3 layers stitched together by hand or machine.

There is no size limit – make it as big or little as you want.

Each piece must stand alone as DONE to count.

You have one week to meet the challenge. Every challenge piece must be a FINISHED project seen through from INCEPTION to COMPLETION during the challenge timeline – that is, started on or after April 12, 2020, and posted by noon Central April 19, 2020.

Anybody got any bright ideas???

It took a while to come up with a plan, but I remembered THIS tutorial, from Kate @ Katie Mae Quilts, recently featured by Sarah @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  Her Hands2Help Charity Quilt Drive is in full swing, so maybe another little donation quilt is in order:

Work the plan, Joyful!!!

Here are the steps that I went through on my journey to a completed wall hanging...

Choosing the fabric:

Did you shrinkerize the pattern, Joyful???

Umm... Maybe!  Just a little.  OK, so the scraps that I chose weren't 5" charm squares.  So, I shrunk the pattern to half size.  Oops!

Let the piecing begin:

The rows are sewn...

... And pressed:

Here I am assembling the top:

This is my small floral quilt top, prior to the crucial step of cutting the actual "disappearing" part:

Well, we'll get to that in a moment.

First, let's talk about the reason for the project.

Reason??  What's the reason, Joyful???

As you know, I usually have a reason for participation.  This week, that reason is this bag of flowery bits given to me by several of my quilty friends:

I've been trying to get serious about cleaning off the sewing table.  I'm easily distracted by a variety of projects (including the PQQ2020 challenges.)

Fast forward to the finishing on this little quilt...

I chose a (well aged) floral chunk for the backing...

... And quilted it with freehand straight(ish) lines:

Once the minimal quilting was done, I trimmed it up...

... And bound it with a strip found in the scrap basket:

This is the completed wall hanging:

It measures 10.5" square.  I'm pretty sure that means I failed!!  Well, at least in the clean-up part of it.  The Q.2 challenge?  I totally ROCKED that bit.  (Especially, since I was done with my entry with FOUR FULL DAYS to spare!!)  I even made it comply with this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge by choosing Light/Bright BLUE scraps, too!  :o))

About that "disappearing" part of the process, Joyful...

Oh! You noticed that I skipped that part?  Whoops!  (Sorry about that, Kate!)  I really MEANT to cut my little quilt up into 4 pieces and sew it back together, again.  I really did!

However, once I got those 25 squares sewn together, I just couldn't make myself cut that small quilt top apart.  I liked the interim piece so much that I simply couldn't do the "disappearing" part, at all.  :o((

SEW...

I've already started gathering MORE floral fabric to make the REAL pattern.  See?  Here's my growing stack of flower prints:

Thank you, Kim!  I'm am enjoying the distraction of these challenges.  Cleaning up another area of the sewing table was would have been a definite bonus.  As evidenced by the floral fabrics shown above, I'm already planning another (larger) quilt to take care of more of the mess.  :P

In the meantime, look how pretty this one looks hanging up on the Gallery Wire in my studio:

Shared with Alycia

for

Finished (Or Not) Friday

AND

Cynthia

for

Oh Scrap!

If you haven't already visited,
you may want to go see all of the lovely 
projects that have been linked.

Until next time...

Bloom!!!