Hi and welcome 😊 Are you recuperating from the time changing and the days getting shorter? It's been typical fall rainy and blustery days. The trees lost most of their leaves in the last couple of days. Welcome Fall! 🍁
Sunset over water
After making my Pink Turtlehead flower piece, I decided that I wanted to make something smaller and simpler using the same technique. This one is based on a photo of the sky and water that I took going to Antarctica. I love the colours of the sunset and thought it would translate well into stitched coils.
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| Sunset over water |
Working in a 5" embroidery hoop really made it easier. Here's my process - from the photo, I made a coloured sketch.
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| Photo taken on our way to Antarctica |
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| Sketch of what I wanted it to look like in the hoop |
As you can see from the sketch and the finished piece, I didn't quite get the proportions right. I wanted to use the rule of ⅓ (as in the first ⅓ is water, while the rest is sunset and sky. I was happily attaching coils to the frame when I realised that I was just going to get water! I ended up un-stitching a number of the coils, and I'm happy to say that it wasn't as difficult to fix as I expected.
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| Water creeping up! |
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| Water subsided and horizon added |
Once the horizon was attached, it was a matter of condensing my sketch to fit the rest of the frame. Below you see what the piece finished to, before I secured the background to the embroidery hoop.
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| Coiling finished - now to finish the piece in the hoop |
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| Finished Sunset over water |
One Monthly Goal
I'm not sure if I'll be able to get this done, but maybe stating it as a goal will help 😊. I really want to make the fourth side of my Cowboy Quilt!
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| I need to add the last border |
What I learned
- I'm very happy to report that un-stitching was much easier than expected. I should have un-stitched a bit more but it still looks good.
- I really enjoyed working on the sunset part - those colours are amazing! They really make my heart sing 😀
- Working in a hoop for the whole project made it so much easier to handle. I'm going to try to keep doing that. I had forgotten that I have square quilting frames that would have made working on the first project (Pink Turtlehead flower) easier.
- I've found images for two more coiling projects. One will be 6" while the other will be 4". I'm looking forward to seeing how working in a smaller hoop will affect the process. It's easy to make thinner coils, so I'll be trying that out.
Related links
- Pink Turtlehead Flowers Finished, October 22, 2025
- Another Border on the Cowboy Panel, August 20, 2025
Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, including the November One Monthly Goal (OMG). Why not check some of them out before linking below? Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Needle & Thread Thursday,
Free Motion Mavericks
Welcome to week 556 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a very productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.
Kat of Scrapbox Quilts is still busy making lap and baby quilts to donate. They are so cute!
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| Flannel quilt with outline quilting by Kat |
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| Straight line quilting by Kat |
Donnalee is making runners for her guild's quilt show boutique in January. Here is a pile of quilted runners waiting to be bound.
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| Quilted runners by Donnalee - ready to sew down the binding! |
Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts made an amazing backpack using Patterns ByAnnie.
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| Preeti is modeling her amazing backpack |
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| An inside view of Preeti's backpack |
Melva of Melva Loves Scraps finished her Paper Lantern quilt. She sewed down the binding with a long running stitch. How lovely!
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| Melva's Paper Lantern quilt |
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| Melva's finish for the quilt binding |
Brenda of Songbird Designs is FMQ her big quilt! She's promised us previews - and here they are! You'll want to go to her post to see the photos up close!
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| Brenda's FMQ of swirls on her big quilt |
Kathleen McMusing participated in Michelle's QAL and made this lovely ghostly runner. How cute is that! Since Kathleen created her own pantograph for this one.
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| Kathleen's Ghost Runner |
It's now your turn!😎