Life's Bloom-in!

I need a new project like - not!  But I just couldn't resist another of Emma Jansen's designs after seeing her Bloom quilt posted on Instagram. (Oh, am I ever hooked on that technology... a reason blog posts have become less frequent.)

Emma and me at Spring quilt market 2012

Emma's talent just oozes out of her... one beautiful quilt pattern after another. I wish I had a thimbleful of her giftedness. And isn't she a doll?

Anyway, I ordered Bloom from her Ballarat Patchwork on-line store. The purchase was too easy, even converting Australian dollars to US dollars.

When the pattern arrived, I pulled fabrics. I've wanted to make a rainbow-colored quilt for a long time now.

From these yummy-colored prints, and using Steam-a-Seam 2, I drew, cut, fused and cut 345 appliqué pieces.

An unused (perhaps that should read "never-used") muffin tin helped me separate each bloom fabric combo.

After more than a week of cutting, fusing and sewing, I ended up with this 78" X 78" quilt top. I've decided to "appli-quilt" it. It's a term I made up to describe the method whereby you fuse shapes to a quilt top, make the quilt sandwich, and then appliqué and quilt at the same time. If you know Kellie Wulfsohn (also an Australian) and her work (Don't Look Now), that's how she makes many of her quilts. 

The back is made using "Twirling Blossoms" Lush, a Michael Miller fabric from Fabrics.com.

Of course, I always save selvages.

After waiting a few days for batting to arrive - Hobbs' Tuscany Wool, from Patsy Thompson - I headed to the garage for spray basting. I moved out the car and golf cart so I could lay a couple of old sheets on the concrete. Then, I laid out the batt. I actually sprayed one side and then turned it over to spray the other side. It was a little difficult to handle, but it worked. I'd heard it's best to take spray basting outdoors, but it always manages to be too breezy on the days I want to baste!

I went back to my sewing room with that sticky batting, and put it onto the backing that was already taped-down on my big table. On advice from a quilter in our MQG, I pressed the entire quilt top. Supposedly, it helps bond the adhesive and batting... bonding being a concern I had since the 505 Spray and Fix can instructions state it's for use with cotton batting. Until I start quilting, I really don't know how well this is going to work!

You may also wonder why I chose wool batt, living as I do in sunny-hot Florida. Well. Bloom isn't so much about being a quilt for warmth, as for an opportunity for free motion quilting. Wool is a favorite of Diane Gaudynski, a domestic machine quilter whose work I respect and admire. She likes wool for its resiliency and trapunto-ish-ness after quilting. I've also found that wool doesn't leave fold marks like some cotton battings do. I know this because I used a wool batt in Snowflake Medallion, another Emma Jansen design.

The step I'm working on now is marking for quilting. It's a step I really struggle with. I manage to do a much better job of suggesting quilting designs for others' quilts than my own! However, taking some time to think through possibilities, and with the help of freezer paper, Frixion pens, and several rulers - including my beloved, oft-used 12" set of nested acrylic circles - I'm slowly working through marking quilting designs. Some shapes will be "organic" - a term that I think really means "quilt on the fly as best as you can."

Now you know what I'm doing. That is unless this little man happens to come for a visit. Of course, then all quilting activities cease.

Linda