Floral Designs in the Snow

I have been participating (creating a quilt in one week) and sponsoring Project Quilting with Quilting Prizes since Season 2. Wow!  This is the 8th Season! Seasons run from Jan to March each year.  A couple times, they hosted a few off season quilt challenges. Of course, I participated and sponsored them. Time flies when you are having fun creating!

I have been inspired to create a quilt in one week and to push myself to step outside my box and create something really cool.  Let me say right here - Cool to me! You may not think it is cool, but the thing is; I need to be inspired by my quilted creation and I need to think it is cool. I guess that would be a personal satisfaction. 

Every quilt, I created for the Project Quilting Challenges, I shared the whole, step by step process, as I created each one. I shared it right here on my blog. Many links are in my side bar or just search project quilting. Some of the quilts I created have inspired me to write a tutorial or a pattern and to self publish it. Most can be found on Craftsy.com in My Pattern Store.

I was really inspired to create for this challenge!

I recently had seen Wonky Squares on several posts on Instagram and I fell in love with the idea! I could not find instructions, but it was easy to see that it was different size triangles stitched to the corners of squares.

My squares are 2 1/2 inch squares. My triangles are odd sizes.

After I stitched them on the corners, I pressed them and squared them up.

Then I scattered them around.  Can you see that some squares have only one corner with a triangle and others have 2 corners with a triangle?

I set up at the dining room table to sew. I am doing the Drop and Give Me Twenty Minutes of Sewing each day on Facebook - Sew 20 minutes a day.  If you have read my Project Quilting posts you will know that all of my quilts were created in short intervals of time during the week. I work/quilt professionally for others during the day. So this 20 minutes works out perfect for me!

See in this photo, how I scattered the wonky squares around.

This is my view from the dining room table. We have not had sunshine for several days, in a row, so I needed my table next to the window for light.  We finally have sunshine this week!

I was going to make this small, but I kept sewing and adding more and more... 

My vision was to not have a border, but as I stood back and looked at it, I felt it needed a border.  I looked through my blue fabrics. I selected this one. It is a corduroy fabric. I purchased it several years ago at a resale shop. I thought I might use for a purse or a bag. I never thought I would add it as a border to a quilt! I love it!

Ok it is ready to quilt!

I selected to use 2 layers of batting. The bottom layer is 80/20 and the top layer is poly.  

The wonky squares were not really ideal for the centers of my flowers, but I guess they gave it a wonky look. 

I quilted the flowers first.

I stitched a spiral in the center and created uneven petals for the flowers.  They are not real, just imaginary. 

I really had fun with the petals!

I quilted around each flower with white Glide thread. It has a wonderful sheen to it and it highlighted each flower perfectly. You can see the shadow quilting in the next photo.

I have a zipper system on my quilting machine. I can zip it on and off. I brought it upstairs to make a decision about the background quilting and ask a non quilter his opinion. I explained the possibilities of quilting backgrounds.  I kind of knew what I wanted by I felt the input from a non quilter was a great option for advice. 

In this photo you can see the shadow quilting around each flower and the white flowers that are under the snow.

Paisley Swirl Quilting for the background quilting worked perfectly. Snow swirls and it would be swirling around the flowers, especially if you are in Wisconsin.

I quilted the Paisley Swirls large, medium, and small where I needed to get in close to a flower.

Thanks again to Kim and Trisha from Project Quilting for inspiring me to create! I really enjoyed this one!

I stitched my name Marcia and 2017 in the center of one of flowers that I imagined is under the swirling snow.

I quilted Bubbles in the border fabric.

You can see the bubbles better on the backside, but on the front side they puff because of the double batting.

More photos of the backside.

I selected solid black binding.

And a full view of the backside.

Yes I was inspired! 

I titled it "Designs in the Snow"

I create in Boscobel, Wisconsin.

I linked it up to Project Quilting.  Take a moment to hop over and vote for your favorite quilts. There are over 100 quilts that were created this week for the challenge. You can vote for 10 of them. 

And then come back and check out my other Project Quilting Quilts. All here on my blog.

Thanks for following along with my quilting adventures.

Marcia