Garden Fence Art

I hope that this post finds you well. The cooler days and nights are with us, hopefully for a while, and I'm very much enjoy them. I never want summer to end, just because it's always too short, but this heat is nuts and I'm glad that fall is in the air. The leaves haven't changed yet but it won't be long!🍁

Making Garden Art to Hang on the Fence

This summer I've been wanting to make an art piece that I could hang on my fence. Fabricland had a sale in July and I bought some lovely blue outdoor fabric for the base. 

Colours in the Garden 

It's not quite finished, but I did want to see how it would hang outside on the fence. Looks great to me😊 I mainly followed the picture of a pattern that I bought years ago on Crafsy.  The pattern is Ribbon Cone Flowers Quilt Pattern by Diane McGregor (you can find the link in Related links below).

I used Wonder Under to fuse the flowers, leaves, butterflies and grass onto the background. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the fabric ironed well. All of the fabrics are batik since they tend to be denser and fray less.

Once tacked on, I used a narrow zig-zag stitch around the shapes. I then added the bottom grass to ground the piece. Next came the butterflies - aren't they amazing? They're cut directly from a batik fabric. The bee hasn't been stitched yet. It will get those yellow stripes soon!

Close up of Colours in the Garden

As you may be able to see from the close up, I free motion stitched veins to the leaves and added a little depth to the flower petals. The grass was also stitched down with the free motion foot.

Colours in the Garden adding colour to the garden!

I found some type of galvanized rod in the garage. It's great for hang the piece on the fence. I will also add a sleeve to the bottom of the piece and put something similar to weight it down.

Colours in the Garden

The piece will hang on this fence since it's facing north and won't be too affected by the sun. This area is the last spot in the garden that needs a major clean up. It's going to be my quiet spot with a fountain. There is still a lot of cleaning up to do in that space but I'm really enjoying the work and am not overly anxious to finish. Since I've accepted that a garden is a never ending project, I'm much happier working in it.

Once the stitching is all done, I will waterproof the piece using waterproofing shoe spray (thanks Lyne for the great idea!). Since I have lots of that, I hope to finish it all this weekend.

What I learned

• After the drama of the last couple of weeks, I really needed to play with colourful fabric. This was the perfect project.
• Thank you all for your lovely comments about Chevy. She is greatly missed but she is in my heart forever!
• Working with this waterproof fabric was much better than I expected. I hope that they have a sale on because it would be awesome to make a fall themed garden fence art piece.

Related links

• Ribbon Cone Flowers Quilt Pattern by Diane McGregor at CastillejaCotton.com

Linking parties

I hope that you will link up to our Free Motion Mavericks link up below. I'll be linking up to many fun parties out there. Let's see was fall is bringing us! Design Wall Monday, Midweek Makers, Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Peacock Party, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap!, Monday Making, 

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 346 of Free Motion Mavericks. Things seem to be picking up a bit - I guess most people are back from holidays and getting ready for fall and everything that means! I'm going to highlight all three posts cause I don't want to make any more decisions today 😊

Frédérique, of Quilting Patchwork Appliqué, linked up her Positivity baby quilt. It's so sweet!

Baby Quilt Plus (Positivity) by Frédérique

Shasta Matova, the High Road Quilter, linked up her Fish and Bubbles, a cute mini quilt.

Fish and Bubbles by Shasta Matova

Gail of QuiltingGail, linked up her lovely Let Your Star Shine. 

Let Your Star Shine by Quilting Gail

Now it's your turn to link up.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter