Garden inspired quilt wall hanging

Tasty Tomatoes pattern by Karen Eckmeier

Inspiration piece

 
This project was started with an inspiration piece – one of 3 batik scenes – which Mary and I found at the wool festival in upstate NY in the fall of 2017.   My piece was based on a garden scene.

Over the course of the past 2 years my piece was pinned on the design wall, was cut down and redesigned multiple times, and sat in a box when I needed the design wall for other pieces or was frustrated with the piece.

Finished piece

I started with a really cool design for the sun – the sun was made out of yellow vegetables – but it was too large for the piece.  So I cut down the sun and it was still too large, so I didn’t use it in the final piece.  Then I made 3 embroidered vegetables and a blackbird – none of them made the final cut.   I also made some “roots” like fabric using threads and yarns with water soluble stabilizer – another piece that didn’t make it into the final piece.

So I cut down the original piece (about 6″ from one side and the bottom. Final size is about 14″ by 29″. Then I appliquéd 3 vegetables and a sun made from hand painted fabric.  To make the seeds, I used watercolor pencils and textile medium to color the seeds and then stitched the seeds on using black thread.

I wanted to try a different kind of binding so I looked around on the internet and found an idea using yarn.  First I used a small zig zag to stitch around the edges.  Then I took 3 strands of yarn and twisted/braided the yarn and laid the yarn next to the edge of the quilt.  Using a “ladder” stitch I couched the yarn along the edge of the quilt.  I am going to try this binding again.

Another completed UFO.  Keep having fun sewing and quilting.  Donna