Bitter Sweet Memories

Back of quilt

Crazy quilt block

Label

In 2014, our book club, Thread Tales, read "On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet." I was struck by one of the characters purchasing flowers for his mother on a regular basis and the hardship that happened for Japanese people living in the United States during World War II. In the story, there is a budding relationship between two youths--one was of Chinese descent and the other was of Japanese descent.

Flower example

During the time we were reading this book, my embroidery software lessons were to make a wall hanging using embroidered flowers and crazy quilting which was part of the lessons. I had a yard of a busy floral print that I decided would be the sashing and binding. I also had a half yard of a coordinating green fabric that I added to the mix. I went on a search and found a purple that would work as the main fabric.

Finished front

Then, it was all about finding leftover bits for the crazy quilt blocks. Creating the blocks was a different way to stitch in the hoop. I liked being able to add embellishment to the blocks. Although, because of the embellishment, quilting the blocks was challenging.

I wanted to create a lace like background behind the embroidery so I stitched different filler stitches behind the flowers. Another time, I would add more spaces between the filler stitches so it was easier to see the variety of stitches. All in all though, I was pleased with my results.