Six Blocks Quilted!

Thanks Betty Jo Tatum for nominating me to take part in a blog challenge. Betty Jo shares her artistic process here. The rules are:

1) Thank the person who nominated you.
2) Post a quote each day for three days.
3) Each day nominate three new bloggers to take part.

My quote for the week is:

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”

― Dalai Lama XIV

I often think of this quote when I feel like progress hasn't happened! I need to remember that every little bit helps!

I nominate Luann Fisher from Let's Create Today to carry on the torch! Luann dyes fabrics, quilts for customers and accomplishes LOADS each month. I always enjoy reading her posts. This is the third post of three to complete Betty Jo's challenge.

I've been doing a little quilting on my hexagon quilt. . .I want to quilt each of my 12 blocks a bit differently. Of course, before I began, I had little idea of what I was going to quilt! Remember, this was a BOM that I started in January of 2015 and JoJo Hall designed and taught this paper pieced class using the hexagon, diamond and triangle shapes. It was a lot of fun to see each person's interpretation the following month! I look forward to our reunion at the end of this month so I can see how people have set and quilted their projects.

I started with the December Christmas tree block. As I looked at the block, I envisioned wall paper behind the tree so that was how I decided to quilt the background with three thinly spaced vertical lines followed by a wider space of unquilted area and repeat! This is a Cindy Needham stencil from her ultimate stencil package. I'm using silk thread on top and a cotton thread in the bobbin.

The next block I tackled was the spider block. It was a pain stitching close to the dark lines of the web and not catching it with the white silk thread! Then, I echo quilted the rest of the block. My youngest granddaughter likes this block a lot! Her response to the block, just makes me smile! Too bad; but, my poor tech skills won't let me load the video. You would have seen her touch each spider and giggle; then you would have seen her feel the texture of the block. Her response is just the kind of response any quilter would love to receive!

The pinwheel blocks were fun. At first, I quilted the "swirls" in white. After quilting wavy horizontal lines for the breeze, the texture of the "arms" was lost. So, I requited the design using a colored thread. I liked the result. 

Since I just finished quilting "breeze," I decided to quilt wind for the kites! My quilting became more windy than I had envisioned; but, there is enough movement to keep the kites afloat.

My favorite block so far is this basket block. I used Cindy Needham's stencil to place the basket design behind the block and black thread to fill in the basket. I left the flowers unadorned so that they would stand out.

Last, I quilted the heart. Truth be told, this was the only block that I knew how I wanted to quilt it since I stitched it and now that it is stitched, it is much too plain!

 I did a little more thinking and decorated this block a little more. I like it better!

I've been noodling about how to quilt the sashing and the orange borders. . .so far, I'm stuck. Have you any thoughts?

By the way, the river addition is better. Check back next week to see it. It is possible to change the course of a river!