Grow FINISHED--post 5

Diagonal lines. . .fail

 It's official. Grow is FINISHED! This was goal number 2d on my annual list. It was goal number two on my September list.

I was stuck for a bit of how to quilt the background behind the leaves so I asked you for your thoughts. I appreciated your responses! Nancy R. suggested quilting more circles to hide the blocks and emphasize the leaves. Vicki suggested quilting ghost leaves. Bonnie suggested vines. At my Friday Sit and Sew, Pat and Rosanne suggested diagonal lines. I was thinking trellis so I tried the diagonal lines.

I mirrored the spacing of the leaves; but, the lines felt too heavy. They didn't add to the piece. I removed the lines. I thought about free motion quilting small leaves in the space. Large ghost leaves, while a great thought, replicating them made the stem of leaves clunky. I didn't remember to take a photo!

The piece seemed to be saying that it wanted lines; but, Gertie was not interested in straight lines. Get is my inner squirrel. Bonnie's suggestion of vines made me think of a curved line. While I was pondering how to have a similar curve in the blocks, I remembered my stitch book.

Curved line with machine embroidery stitches.

With my first Bernina 790, I stitched out all of the embroidery stitches in various widths and lengths on muslin that was stabilized. I put the finished sheets into clear sheet protectors and stored them in a three ring binder. I looked at different stitches and found one that I thought would work. It did. I had altered the stitch I chose making it wider and longer than it was designed.

Page from the stitch book

If I had been more mindful and started the stitching a bit further from the left and right edge of the block, I wouldn't have had a gap in the center. I tried filling in the gap with another line of curved stitching. Gertie and I both agreed that was not the right approach.

Feather stitch

After I had stitched all the curved lines, I chose another embroidery stitch. This time, I used the stitch as it was designed. I thought the feather stitch represented the leaves on the stem well. I thought that I would repeat this stitch in the leaf stems; but, both the green thread and the stitch did nothing for the stems.

Thread used for the project sans the blue

Instead, I used a dark blue thread and stitched a straight line through each stem. At this point, I had finished the quilting. I used three threads on the top. I used the purple thread in the bobbin.

I estimate that I used 10 yards in this project. All of it came from stash. I have now used 10 yards of fabric from my stash this month. For the year, I have used 93 yards and I have a net los of 28.25 yards for the year.

Quilt back

This sleeve was one I used on a project and then removed it because I decided that I wanted the orientation of the quilt vertical instead of horizontal. The leaf print fabric fit the theme of the quilt. I did use machine embroidery stitches to quilt the background as a nod to the brush strokes vanGogh used in his work.

The label

This project will be my submission for the book, "The Secret Life of Sunflowers" by Marta Molnar. It is a historical fiction book with one story line about how Vincent vanGogh's widowed sister in law works to promote his art. The leaves reminded me of sunflower leaves. Finishing a started project was a bonus!

I will be gifting this quilt; but after the quilt show next fall!

Quilt front

Previous posts of this project are:the creation of the top-- post 1; the tutorial of basting a quilt--post 2; Beginning the ditch quilting--post 3; Quilting decisions--post 4. The project started in 2023 as a Positively sew along with Preeti Harris who blogs at Sew Preeti Sew. I'm linking to Oh Scrap.