Project Quilting 14.1 and Slow Sunday stitching

Hi, Project Quilting, season 14 has started again. The first theme is "The First One". I just had time to make a quick piece. I'm also working on a new slow stitching project.

The First One for Project Quilting

The theme brought me to think of "one" which can be alone but also unique. That's where my thinking stopped! 

I found a beautiful, unique piece of hand-marbled fabric that was gifted to me. 

The First One - Unique and Beautiful 😍

To use the fabric as the binding, I cut the backing and batting about one inch smaller than the front. I then double folded the edge of the front fabric. I machine stitched it from the back. 

This is what it looked like with the first fold.

Fabric folded once for the binding.

Folded binding to the back.

Stitching in the Round

This first TextileArtist.org Stitch Club workshop of 2023 is by April Sproule. After watching her Further Development video, I created my own spiral to stitch and appliqué. 

Stitching in the Round project - so far

There will be a lot of stitching, both around the spiral lines and within the spiral. On my template, I shaded in the positive space, where there will be appliqué and stitching. The negative space will be mostly left unstitched.

Spiral Template

This is how I envisioned placing some of the appliqué. After attaching the larger pieces, the rest of the positive space will be mostly smaller snippets of fabric with stitching.

Playing with possible layouts

I still have many enjoyable, mindful stitching hours left on this piece. 😊 Here are some close up pictures as of last night (or morning).

Attaching the fabrics in the background

I haven't finished attaching this beautiful sari yarn

Most of the stitching is on this side

What I learned

• I forgot that the linking party ends at noon CT. That gave me just an hour to write the post!
• I used the walking foot to quilt this since I was having problems with my tension with my FMQ foot. I'm happy to say that this has all be resolved!
• I couldn't help myself, I started another slow stitching project from last week's TextileArtist.org Stitch Club. 
• Our workshop teacher, April Sproule, suggested that we use silk organza under our background. I didn't think that I had any that hadn't been pre-washed, but I found some. She's correct when she says that sewing through it is like going through butter!
• It took me a while to figure out what to add to the background. I'm really hoping that it will work. I can always add more or even remove, if I really have to!
• I am happy to say that I am playing, learning and stitching with mindfulness and contentment. So far so good!
• You may have noticed my new blog background. What a job that was since Blogger is always changing how things are done. It's not what I planned to do, but it was the best that I could do at the time. Hopefully I'll figure out how to make some of the changes that I want!
• BTW, Version 2.0 is coming along nicely 😊. I was able to fix the tension so the Travel Adventure is finished. I only have the second third of the Canadian section left. The final post will be on the upcoming Free Motion Mavericks.

Related links

• 14.1 – The First One – Challenge 1 of Project QUILTING season 14
• April Sproule, website and Instagram

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, including Project Quilting 14.1. Let's go see what everyone else has made! I'm also linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching - finally I have a post that is done one time for this great linking party also! Put your foot down, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Off the Wall Friday, Beauties Pageant, Peacock Party, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap!, 

Great news! The First One was featured on Put your foot down. Thanks Denise!

Project details

The Fist One - Unique and Beautiful

Made for Project Quilting 14.1

Material: hand-marbled fabric

Technique: Quilted with walking foot; self-binding.