Panel Wallhanging Gone Wrong, but Fixed!

Several years ago I bought a panel that had two different large flowers.  The designer was Stephanie Brandenburg.  I loved the sunflower and made up the wallhanging using thread painting.  I ended up buying more of the panels and making them up for gifts but somehow I don't have pictures.  I did not have any problems quilting any of them.  I had one panel left and decided to quilt it up.  OH MY.  Distortion, distortion.  I think it is because I did not stabilize the flower first and then fill in with stitching.   Here is the sunflower I did without any issues.

I don't have pictures of my problem wallhanging in progress.   I had done a LOT of threadwork in the center and it was so wavy I thought there was no way I could get it to lie flat filling in the background.  I finally decided if I trimmed out the flower portion I could applique it to a new background.  I had to fuss with it a bit to get it to lay flat, but I managed to satin stitch it.  The background is made up of some leftovers from another project with some blue added for accent.  I am thrilled with the way it turned out and it finishes at 24 X 24.  I used two kinds of yarn with an overlay of tulle in the center.  If only I could take straight pictures!

embellished poppy panel

stitching closeup

I hand couched red embroidery floss next to the binding for an accent.

 I started a new one block wonder quilt.  I started with 7 of these panels, six of them are cut up and sewn into half hexagon ready to place around this panel.  I am anxious to see how it turns out.  It is a great memory of our snorkeling trip in Hawaii.

Our county fair is this week and I am entering six quilts, two of them wallhangings. 

I am linking up with Design Wall Monday.

Goofing off with Journal Pages

Life has been hectic lately. I had 3 potlucks in less than a week, started back to work Monday, with school starting tomorrow. I really do enjoy working at a one room school and thankful that I only work part time. In the meantime I decided to finish up a couple samples I made in workshops at the Western Regional 4H Leaders Forum last March. I was on scholarship as a first time attendee so I took a couple leadership classes and the rest were fun classes. I took one on embellishing and didn't really have a plan so I decided to make a journal page. The instructor had some patterns available and most people brought shirts or something to embellish. I had fabric! The rose is really more lavendar and done with Angelina fibers and a few crystals and stitching. I finished it up tonight, 8 1/2" X 11".

The next class was on felted wool. The instructor had lots of wool and told us how to look for wool items and how to felt it. She had needles, and pearl cotton and said "make something". A lot of women in the class were distressed, I again decided to do a journal page so I just just started cutting and stitching. She let us keep the needle and take extra pearl cotton home to finish our projects. It looks wonky in the picture, it really is, because I didn't have pins and afterall it's folk arty and made without a real plan. I backed it with a pieced of fabric and turned it then added a row of stitches around the outer edge and have another finished project today!


Actually I made this third journal page Saturday. I just got it out of order! My friend Penny gave us all Crystal Light containers and I had been saving leftover thread cuttings for a long time. When I machine quilt I trim threads and throw them over my shoulder! I then scoop up a bunch and put them in the container. I just wanted to play with something so I laid out the threads on a piece of fabric and started stitching them down. That was tricky because they wanted to go everywhere! I could have done something like put tulle over it but I didn't want that effect. if you squint it almost looks like a landscape! I enjoyed the break from bigger things while making these!