Its a beautiful day in the neighborhood

Here is another stinking cute wall quilt sent to me by a long-time client. It's about 42"x42" and has some cottons and some wools for applique.  For lack of it's appropriate name, I call it the Neighborhood quilt.  She sent a thin cotton batting, but I added a layer of wool to really pup the appliques. Additionally, these reproduction prints are known for being "busy", and busy prints hide the quilting designs.  Having added batting makes the relief of their quilting designs that much more visible.

I pulled a soft yellow variegated thread by YLI for the background. The rest of the houses got either pink, green or purple thread - whichever type matched best. Although it is not really visible, there is also some stitching in black on the windows and doors.  I just wanted to give the appliques some definition -- window paning or an echo on the door. 

 The stitching on the houses is often very simple, so as not to compete with the prints. Linear designs are usually better for these fabrics.  Every now and then, though, I threw in a brick or block pattern though.

 I just love the scalloped roofs. These are freehand clamshells. Most of the designs are detailed in my Dense & Dainty book.

 Making some of the lines go horizontal, while others are vertical makes the houses more visibly interesting.  When there was room, puffs of smoke was quilted coming out of the chimneys. It is a whimsical village with hints of realism.

One last pink house...

 Backs are always fun to see when they are mostly solid.

  

Today was a "fun" day, and I use that word loosely, packing up teaching things and books to ship to Virginia. I have a whopping 140lb of stuff, AND I plan to check 2 very large suitcases. Teaching 6 classes takes a heck of a lot of stuff. I have a bit of prep still to do for one of my new classes, but the others should be autopilot by now!

This weekend I get to shift gears and help my daughter quilt her newest quilt. All I can say is thank goodness it is nice and small!