Sewvivor-The Little Waffleflower

I am SO excited for the Sewvivor Season 3 auditions at Family Ever After! I have auditioned for the past 2 seasons so… 3rd time is the charm right?

This year’s theme is QUILTING! When I first found out I seriously think my heart didn’t stop racing for several hours I was so pumped. Last year, I attempted my first machine-quilted project, and I’ve been addicted ever since. For anyone popping over from the competition, or anyone who has forgotten, last year for Christmas I took on the task of making 8 quilts in 2 months. I finished 5 on time, 2 I have since finished, and 1 went horribly wrong and is still sitting in a box in my basement. Now I see that as a pretest for this competition since I’ll only have a short time to finish each project if I have the pleasure of competing. 🙂

So without further ado, I’ve chosen one of the more complicated quilts I made for Christmas last year, and one of the ones I didn’t finish on time. The Abstract Mountain and Flying Geese Quilt:

 

I really tried to make each quilt personal for the person receiving it. This one was for my Dad who loves nature and the mountains. I have always had a view of at least 2 mountains wherever I’ve lived, so they really have become a huge part of my life. I don’t think I could ever live in a place where I couldn’t see one or at least big hills of some sort.

My original inspiration was from these two quilts HERE and HERE. Neither one had any sort of directions, so I did my best to piece it together on my own. For some of the flying geese I used THIS tutorial, and then a few months after Christmas (*ahem!*) I discovered paper piecing and used THIS pattern to finish the rest. (I’m not sure of the original source of the paper piecing pattern as I found it on Pinterest, and the link led to the image I linked too. If you have more accurate information, please let me know so I can update it.)

I WISH I would have known about paper piecing when I had pieced together the mountains. I’m sure it would have saved me a lot of time and effort. And headaches. And frustration… I do love the way it turned out in the end, but it was definitely a learn-as-you-go type of project since I had never done something like it before. I pieced together the mountains, adding one more strip here and there until I liked how it looked. I then folded over the edges and appliqued around the top of the mountain to the sky background.

I wanted the sky section to really have a “sky” feel… Did that sound as corny as I think it did? Oh well. I chose to do an all over swirl for the sky only because it reminded me of swirls of wind created by someone who can actually draw. I was really nervous since I’m not super experienced with free motion quilting, but I love the movement it gave the quilt. It definitely added the feel I was hoping for.

I apparently didn’t get a good close-up of the mountains on the front of the quilt before giving it to my Dad, but I think the back also helps show the quilting detail. Each section of the mountain had a different filler pattern. Towards the end I wasn’t sure I would accomplish that, but thankfully I scrounged up enough ideas to finish all the different section. One of my favorites is the “wheat” you can see in the bottom left corner that covered the green section on the front that represents the grassy hill or field coming down off the mountain. The funny looking section on the right hand side of the mountain was super hard to photograph, and I’m super disappointed I couldn’t get a better picture. That section says “World’s Best Dad,” but it just didn’t want to show up on the camera for me.

 

There you have it! I put a lot of love and time into this particular quilt. It was a super fun project that let me explore all different techniques from the quilting world that I often times hadn’t heard of when I began making it. I hope you love it as much as I do and consider me for a spot in Rachel’s quilting competition. I am SO excited and look forward to seeing that amazing things that are made throughout the competition once again. 🙂