2018 Finishes - Prairie Primrose - #48

This one is so different from most of my quilts, but is one of my favorites and now has a home on my bed.  This quilt is called Prairie Primrose out of a book called Simple Traditions by Kim Diehl.  The monthly program was through Homestead Hearth for twelve months, starting in December 2006.  You can read more about it here, as I was blogging when I decided to pick up this project and start working on it again.

It is a king sized over large quilt measuring at 104" X 104".  Each appliquéd block measures 20" X 20", before adding on the sashing and corner stones.   The fabric is from Kansas Troubles Bound to the Prairie II line by Moda.

I was able to get the top completed up to the outside border and setting corners.  Actually, I had already appliquéd the setting corners, but the pattern called for a vining appliqué to be done on the wide plain border.  I kept putting it off, as it would be a horrendous time consumer.  Then, I had the bright idea of just finishing with no appliqué on the border.  The borders hang off of  the bed, and it looks perfect with out the appliqué.  I am delighted that I went ahead and finished this way, as it is done and looking lovely!

The below pictures are close ups of each block, each done in a different color, causing the quilt to flow and not look flat.

The overly bright sun doesn't really show the appliqué, but I did it with a blanket stitch on my domestic machine.

I chose to do a scrappy binding, as I had lots of green left over from not choosing to do the green vine appliqué on the border.

The backing is one that has some of the colors from the front of the quilt.  I wished I had gone ahead and used a more matching Kanas Troubles fabric, but the backing rarely gets seen, so I am still happy that it is all done.

Size: 104" x 104"

Fabric Lines Used:  Kansas Troubles Bound to the Prairie II

Colors: Green, Wine, gold, blue, red

Pattern:  Prairie Primrose (Simple Traditions)

Designer: Kim Diehl

Long Arm Quilter:  Carol Nelson

Year Began: 2006

Year Completed: 2018

"Little Trip to Bali"

I have had this as a UFO for about 4 years.  I was working at a local quilt shop, and saw this in the book, "Keepsake Baby Quilts from Scraps"by Julie Higgins from Clotilde.com.  (See I was liking scrappy quilts for some time now!)

It was my first time using batiks, so I ended up buying lots of fat quarters, and a charm pack.  

I had all of the elephant blocks appliquéd, and the center blocks all cut out.  I went ahead and assembled the center blocks and then went on to make the top.  I also used a batik for the background, which can be hard to find the lighter colors.  

I now have it sandwiched and pinned and working on the quilting.  So far I have done cross hatching in the center, as the blocks are on point.

I chose to do shadow quilting around the elephants.  There are twelve of them, and this part is taking longer than I expected.

Then there were the blank corner blocks and the blank blocks in between the elephant blocks that I needed to do some kind of quilting, as that was lots of big spaces.  

So I took the original stencils of the elephant, and outlined it on each block and just did a stitching around the outline.  

It's a little hard to see when taking pictures, but it finished out these blank spaces just perfect.

I have about three elephants to do the shadow quilting, and then I will be able to get it bound and another one will be completed.

I'll be back with finished pictures in a few days.  

Warmest...

Couple More Prairie Primrose Blocks

Yep, just stopping in and showing off a couple more blocks to the massive quilt, Prairie Primrose.

This makes a total of 5 completed, and only 4 more to go, more than half-way done.  Except I looked at all the appliqué work on the corner posts, the corner sashings, aaannndd all around the quilt boarders.  Yikes!!!

Warmest...

New BOM UFO - Prairie Primrose

Most quilters know who Kim Diehl is, and if you are new to quilting and discover her, you will surely like her and her style.  She combines simple piecing and appliqué to make gorgeous quilts.  

So, to move the story along,  Homestead Hearth was offering a BOM using the pattern Prairie Primrose in Kim's book, Simple Traditions.  I already had the book, so I signed up for the BOM.    

This is a big quilt, 106" X 106", and each block measures 21" square.  See how nice it looks on a bed?  When I saw this, I wanted this on one of my beds in the house.

Initially, I was all gung-ho in working on this BOM, mostly because I wanted to try my hand at "hand turn appliqué".  Big failure!  I am sure I would have gotten better with practice.  Ah, no.  Not.  So, I got busy, and since it wasn't a great success right away, I stuck it in a tub and never thought about it again.  Then, again, I was surfing through Pinterest, and came across several pins of Kim's work, and I remembered that I had all the fabric and pattern to do one of her quilts.  So, I went on a treasure hunt through my tubs of BOM's and projects, and found it all the individual month packets and the first block I worked on.   I knew I would not be doing the hand appliqué on this quilt, so I took out all the handwork I did on block one and redid it on the machine using one of the stitches (blanket stitch) to do all the pieces.  Here is the newly redone block 1.  So much better than the original.  It was so bad, I didn't even want to take a picture.  Pathetic!!!  But after doing this block on the machine, I am excited to work on the other blocks and do this quilt.

Just for information, the fabric used in this BOM is Moda, Kansas Troubles.  Two lines were used, called Bound to the Prairie 2, and Winter Rose.  Beautiful!

Warmest...