Coneflowers and books on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Week 388 of Free Motion Mavericks! I hope that this pre-holiday weekend finds you well 😎. I've got a squirrel and a Summer Book Club update to share with you.

Blue Stripes for a Table Scraps Challenge

This week I was very restless so I grabbed my box of strips, picked out the blue ones (mostly) and started sewing. This is my favourite kinds of piecing! I made it all up as I went along with stripes on the horizontal and vertical while adding some other colours in the mix. As you can guess, this month's Table Scraps theme was stripes and the colours were bright or dark blue. 

Playing with blue stripes

I started with the stripes but knew that I wanted to add more to it. What would happen if I added something on top of the stripes? Would it make a good background?

Blue stripes...now what?

I started jotting down ideas. 

• Use hand-dyed scraps for the appliqué.
• Add complimentary colours - orange with blue.
• Look for flowers that would fit.

Looking through my collection of Vesey Bulbs garden catalogues, I found the perfect flower - it's a Marcella Butterfly Rainbow Coneflower (I'll try to get some for next year 😊)

I have the most amazing pink orange scrap, so I backed it with a fusible web adhesive. I also did the same with a green piece. Based on my rough drawing, I cut up petal pieces, leaves and the centre cone.

Preparing a drawing and then cutting out fabric

Once I finished the appliqué, it was time to free motion quilt (FMQ). I had a blast stitching the flowers and leaves. I used some newly purchased Gutermann Recycled Polyester Thread. This thread is made of 100% recycled plastic bottles. I bought them from Bridget O'Flaherty when she spoke to our guild about sustainable quilting. The thread stitched really well.

Since my garden is finally presentable (it was so wet and then hot that it was impossible to mow the lawn!), I went out first thing this morning, to take pictures in the dew. It's too bad that it's too early to take a photo with my own coneflowers!

In front of my thriving pink campion

Pretty purple flowers that are related to geranium

My flox are lovey

I think that this runner has found it's new home in my living room 😊

A new table runner for my living room

Summer Book Club QAL 2022

At the beginning of June, I started getting ready for the Summer Book Club QAL. For some crazy reason, my One Monthly Goal (OMG) for June was to make 10 blocks. I don't know what I was thinking but I did come close. If I hadn't make the table runner, I might have reached my goal but since it's the book blocks that made me so restless, I probably wouldn't be in any shape to post about it! 😊 

Don't get me wrong, the Tall Tale book blocks are great to paper piece but for some reason, my distracted brain just couldn't focus! Every block that I made had at least one, and usually many more oops! moments. Unfortunately my new seam ripper has gotten well used.

Here are my first four blocks.

My first 4 lovely book blocks

The first 8 Tall Tale book blocks

What I learned

Squirrel!!!

• It was really weird how each of my blocks had several things that I had to redo. I just couldn't seem to focus on the piecing - my mind was all over the place.
• Finally, when I just started piecing together some blue stripes, all was well! The FMQ of the flower went well, although by the time that I had finished the rest of the FMQ, I was getting sloppy. I should have stopped but I wanted to get this ready for this post.
• It's like the foundation paper piecing wasn't mindless enough but not difficult enough to require my full attention. I'm going to have to work on that if I want to get past 8 blocks!
• I want to mention Bridget O'Flaherty, our guild's guest speaker for June. I realised through her presentation that I knew her work! In 2008 I got a calendar, Quilts: Canada The land we love. It was all of Bridget's work! This is when I discovered art quilting. Bridget still quilts but with an emphasis on sustainability.
• I have to apologize to my son for not working on his Version 2.0 quilt but I was too restless. I did start drawing some geology images from his towel though 😊  
• Happy Canada Day and Fourth of July!

Related links

• June's OMG and Summer Book Club QAL, June 07, 2022
• Vesey Bulbs
• Summer Book Club Quilt-Along
• Kate Basti on Instagram
• Tall Tale pattern
• Bridget O'Flaherty

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, including the June Table Scraps 2022 linking party! I managed to miss the DrEAMi Squirrel linkup again but you may as well check it out! Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Peacock Party, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap!, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, 

Great news! Susan of Quilt Fabrications featured my runner in her Midweek Makers post! Thanks Susan 😊

Project Details

Flower Power runner

17" x 13"

Materials: commercial and hand-dyed fabric scraps, Gutermann Recycled Polyester Thread 

Techniques: improv piecing, appliqué, and free motion quilting

Free Motion Mavericks

I hope that you've had a chance to work on some free motion quilting (FMQ) this week. Did you see the quilt that Gail from Quilting Gail had in the Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine? If you didn't, then check it out!

Quilting Gail's Summer Sailing

It's now your turn to link up!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter