Project Quilting 15.2 - Sky Colour, Challenge 2

Hi and welcome to my second challenge of Project Quilting (PQ), Season 15. The theme this week is sky colour - "take inspiration from the colours of the sky, but exclude or use less than 10% of the usual blue" (cerulean). Thanks Trish for this great prompt and Kim for hosting! 

A landscape and sky for my agenda cover

For the last few years, one of the first projects that I've made in January is a new agenda cover. They've had many interesting, colourful fabrics that are usually hand-dyed. This year I combined my agenda cover with the PQ Sky Colour challenge.

Front of the agenda cover - landscape with the setting sun

Agenda cover - back

This is the second agenda cover that I've made this week. My niece was in town from Copenhagen and I made her one. I'll be posting about that one on Free Motion Mavericks next week.

I started by creating my landscape over a piece of thin cotton/polyester fabric as a base. I went to my scrap box of batiks and picked out anything that might look good. It didn't take me long to figure out what I wanted and then pin everything down.

Thread used to FMQ the landscape

I let the landscape sit overnight and in the morning, I made minor changes to some of the areas, especially the setting sun. I put a batting under the piece and started free motion quilting (FMQ). Nothing fancy, just following the landscape to give it texture and to stabilize it. I didn't use any fusible webbing and I did get a couple of minor puckers, but nothing serious 😊

A closer look at the finished FMQ piece

Time to trim the landscape and make an agenda cover

Once it was all FMQ and the pictures above were taken, I started putting the agenda cover together. Because I had just made one for my niece, I didn't even look at the instructions and just went for it. I'm thrilled to say that I only made one minor mistake which was easily fixed.

I used a fun and colourful batik to make the side panels, and a dark blue ocean fabric to make the backing. I also remembered to affix my small fabric name tag to the front.

The side panels of the agenda cover

Here is what the landscape looks like. The purple at the top looks more like navy blue, but it really is dark purple. 

Agenda cover made with a landscape and
wonderful sky colours

What I learned

• I did add a thin strip of cerulean blue (I love that word and I'm working on learning to spell it!) at the beginning of the sky. I wanted a clear separation between the sky from the landscape. I'm quite sure that this is less than 10%.
• I love colourful skies and I'm quite happy with my sunset. 
• It was fun to work with batik fabrics - it had been a while.
• The FMQ went well and when the fabric moved and created an open space I just added more fabric on top! That's why I love art quilts - they are so flexible!
• I also didn't like one of the areas of the sky that I had FMQ - so I did the same thing and added a strip of fabric to cover it up 😊
• I made this agenda cover slightly larger than it should have been. This worked out perfectly since it's quite thick. This avoided the problem that I had making my niece's agenda cover.
• As usual, I managed to forget about Project Quilting until Wednesday, when I read Sandra's post that she added to my linking party. Who needs a week when a couple of days will do? I now have a reminder on my phone for the Sunday that the next PQ challenge starts...and not just when it's due.
• Are you wondering why I actually have an agenda? So am I...but I do love to write notes about the smaller projects that I'm working on, instead of in a sketchbook that I may or may not find....yes, I admit it - I have a huge information management problem. 😁

Related links

• Project Quilting 15.1 - Bird House Challenge 1, January 14, 2024
• An Agenda Cover and Update on Free Motion Mavericks, January 05, 2023
• Journal Cover for Quilting Agenda, April 10, 2022
• Finishing up One Monthly Goal - OMG, January 31, 2020
• Free Motion Quilted Gifts with Christina Cameli on Craftsy

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, particularly Project Quilting 15.2. You'll want to check out what others are making. Free Motion Mavericks, Off The Wall Friday, Put your foot down, Patchwork & Quilts, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Beauties Pageant, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2024, Oh Scrap!, 

Project details

Agenda cover - made for the Project Quilting 15.2 Sky Colour

Size: 8" x 9½"

Materials: base commercial fabric, batik fabric, thread, batting

Techniques: Free Motion Quilting (FMQ)