Sew & Be Happy

Way back in 2012 I joined my first ever bee - called Sew & Bee Happy!

I knew Kat a little when I stepped out into the world of the bee and Cindy and Jude joined in too!  I didn't know the others and they were from many different places.

Come July I asked for words relating to sewing as I wanted a hanging for my sewing space.  I had a list 

Dream 
Design 
Cut 
Pin 
Piece 
Stitch 
Trim 
Layer 
Baste 
Quilt 
Bind 
Label 
Love

and made the longest ones myself as a guide to what I was intending.

I got some fabulous words back from my beemates.

It was then I decided to complicate things and add pictures to illustrate the words.   It just so happened that there was a QAL cum competition to make paper pieced sewingword/picture blocks 
about that time!     It was called The Sew Out Loud {quilter's wordplay} QAL 

Brilliant I thought I will add them to my hanging - totally forgetting that paper piecing is NOT my favourite thing in the world and oblivious to the fact that the blocks finished at 12"!   My hanging was putting weight on!   It would have been obese and exceed any hanging wall space I had.

About this time I gave up!  Things were becoming too difficult!

The project had a revival last year and I paper pieced elements of some blocks from the QAL/Online, which made them smaller but I again came to a halt!

This month I decided it didn't matter if I paper pieced these objects or not.  Several had curved shapes and it has always seemed mad to me to use a technique that requires straight lines for making curves!   So I allowed myself the perfect solution - applique!

There was no stopping me then....

Raw edge applique

Needle turned applique

Some curved piecing and improv

I also managed a bit of pixel piecing

And even some trapunto

I had fun with the machine quilting

And added a bit of backstitch quilting in cotton perle as my label

And now here is my finished wall hanging

It has paper piecing, improv, applique, machine embroidery and quilting and hand embroider/quilting, some pixel piecing and some trapunto!   Now I think that pretty well wraps it up ....don't you!


My thanks to Kat, Cindy, Jude, Henny, Kara, Allie, Leona, Hilary, Wendi and Emma for helping me to make this one very special wall hanging!


One of my FAL15 quilts which I will be linking up at the end of the quarter.