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Friday, October 15, 2010

Sew&Tell Friday - Not Your Grandmother's Flower Garden

Hi, all!!

Well, I've managed to make it through my second (and final) week of Lilli's fall break - she goes back to preschool next week and I get my Tuesdays and Thursdays back for sewing!   That's not to say we haven't had a good time while she's been out of school - today we went to see the Nashville Ballet perform a little ballet for our local library, and Miss Lilli had a ball trying to be a ballerina while she was watching!  I haven't had that much fun at the ballet in years!

Here's my first "sew and tell" for Friday:

Deborah with her very first quilt!

This quilt is my friend Deborah's first quilt - can you tell how proud she is?  I feel like a proud quilt-mama myself!  She did a beautiful job, even adding some flourishes in her border quilting on her own!   She's already planning to start on a sudoku quilt next.  I love seeing the next generation of quilters develop!!

I hope you like the quilt I'm about to share with you - I certainly do!  This quilt was W-A-Y out of my comfort zone - lots of new techniques, fabric, and designing on my own.  It has been given to a young woman in my Bible study group who had to have some very serious surgery yesterday.  She is such a unique personality that she really needed something quirky and whimsical.  I was looking on blogs and Flickr for some inspiration and saw this quilt.  Somehow it just struck me as being "right", and I started doodling on my own to see what I could come up with that had the same kind of feel.

I pulled a group of fabrics that were very saturated fall colors, as those seemed to be my recipient's preferred palette.    I also found a beautiful piece of Irish linen that came from my grandmother's stash.  It was 72 inches wide - perfect for this quilt!  This became the backing for the appliques.  I spread it out on my bed (out of the reach of helpful dogs) and my little assistant and I arranged the flowers and stems on the linen.  Here's a picture of where we started....


I did a little slimming of the stems, plus made them curvier to give it a little more whimsy!  (And I want to give a shout-out to my friend Karrie of Freckled Whimsy, who gave me a lot of encouragement and creative criticism on this quilt!   Be sure to check out her new tutorial for a quick string quilt - it's AWESOME!)  So here's the final version of - - - - - Not Your Grandmother's Flower Garden!

Look who's playing peek-a-boo!

This quilting was a bear (big and heavy quilt)
but totally worth it!















I can really knock these swirls out now!














The back of the quilt has
appliqued squares with Scripture verses
from friends of the recipient
This may be the biggest size quilt I can free-motion quilt on my Singer - it's about 70 inches square.  I'm not sure I could go any bigger!  But it was so much fun to try out a lot of different designs on this quilt.  And I'm beginning to feel like I may be able to design my own quilts someday.  So I'm really glad I had the chance to stretch my wings with this one!

By the way, there's another AccuQuilt GO! Cutter giveaway going on, over at Alderwood Quilts.  Go check it out!!  And don't forget the Friday giveaway on AccuQuilt's Facebook page....

I'm headed to a quilt show tomorrow afternoon - I hope to get lots of inspiration there, plus maybe meet some new quilting friends!  And maybe I'll get some pictures to share.......

I'll be linking up with Amy's Sew & Tell Friday - be sure to go check out what everyone's done this week and share some bloggy love!

Later!

Sarah

PS - You can find the winners of my Fall Into Fall Quilt Bloggers Giveaway here!

23 comments:

  1. this is amazing!!! i think your quilting really takes it over the edge and sets the whole thing off so perfectly.

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  2. I think the quilting is beautiful, too. I just finished a 44" quilt and it took me much longer than I thought it would. I am trying to imagine quilting like you! Great job!

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  3. *That quilt is adorable! I like seeing the before and after:) Your quilting is awesome, too!

    *You already are a quilt designer, silly.

    *Where's the quilt show?

    *Have you ever taught classes on quilting? I think you would be an excellent teacher!

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  4. another post that made me cry! my goodness you ladies have such huge hearts! and talented friends!

    both quilts are beautiful for so many different reasons, but the main one is the lady that links them together-you! thank you for sharing the stories behind the quilts and the "Not Your Grandmother's Garden"...rocks!

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  5. Beautiful, especially the quilting!

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  6. Oh wow, that is some lovely quilting! Gorgeous!

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  7. WOW! Sarah you are awesome! I love this quilt - I only hope that someday I can quilt as well as you can!

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  8. What a beautiful quilt! Your quilting is stunning!

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  9. Oh my, what an gorgeous quilt. I love the quilting on it...very appropriate for this quilt. What an amazing gift for her.

    And yay for Deborah. It's such a great feeling to finish a quilt, especially your first one!!

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  10. Sarah, you should be so pleased. It turned out beautifully. If you hadn't told us, I would have thought you were an old pro at "whimsy". :-)

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  11. Oh my Sarah I love the Not Your Grandmother's Flower Garden! Simply gorgeous!!!

    So glad to be following your blog now!!!

    Ann Flowers
    flowerscrazyq@gmail.com

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  12. Sarah, this is just gorgeous! You did such a wonderful job designing, piecing, and quilting this quilt. It is really a beautiful quilt!

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  13. It's wonderful to share isn't it? Your quilt looks so nice. You did a great job with all that free motion too!

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  14. Sarah -- you did a GREAT job quilting the top. After Deborah did such a good job on her first quilt, I bet she will be hooked for life! Take Care.

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  15. Oh my gosh.....your quilt is absolutely AMAZING!!!!! It is beautiful and your quilting is just....wow, I'm speechless! lol What a touching gift for someone in need of something comforting to snuggle under. And, your friends first quilt is wonderful! I'm new to quilting too and know how proud she is. :-) I am new to amylouwho's site and her "Sew & Tell Fridays" and I'm so glad that I found her site and your's as well! :-)

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  16. Just gorgeous! It really is stunning!

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  17. Your beautiful quilting has really bought this quilt to another level! Stunning!

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  18. Awesome job to the new quilter!! She did great- please tell her so for me. I am impressed that she jumped right in with the free motion. Took me years to try that!

    Speaking of which- yours is GOR. GEOUS. I love the sun on the top. I did not realize the scale of the flowers last week when I commented. I LOVE HUGE SCALE QUILTS. This is soooo cute. I bet your bug-with-eyelashes-friend loves it.

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  19. Wow! That quilt is beautiful!!! I think you did a wonderful job, and I bet the recipient will be forever grateful. What a kind & thoughtful person you are.

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  20. love the flowers! and the quilting too x

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  21. Your friend Deborah must be a quilting talent and so do you. Your quilt is very pretty. Thank you for sharing those nice links.

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Comments make me smile!! If you want a PDF of a pattern, PLEASE leave your email address in your comment, or email me directly at salliesue57 (at) gmail (dot) com!