Today is my stop on the Travellin’ Pic Stitch Blog Hop, hosted by Laura at Quokka Quilts and Katy at The Littlest Thistle. I met both of them while at the Sewing Summit — lovely women! — and decided I definitely need to get to Australia and Scotland (again!!).
Thanks ladies, for putting this together! I had such a good time with this project.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this month, I chose to use my photo of the Seattle skyline as my inspiration for this English Paper Piecing project.
Gorgeous, isn’t it? Here are the fabrics that I chose, based on the photo:
And here is the finished project!
I chose to do a less traditional English paper pieced project, and just went with some elongated hexagons. I sort of laid them out in the same general layout of the colors in the photo, and this is what I came up with. Even though it’s not technically recognizable as the Seattle skyline, I know exactly what it is, and it reminds me of that beautiful day.
Toward the end of this project, I didn’t think it would come together. I was trying to hand-applique the pieces to my background fabric and I didn’t baste well so everything was warped and ugly — last night, I ended up ripping the whole thing off the background and assumed I’d just do a half-finished post today.
But as I was driving home (I had been sewing in Starbucks), I was thinking about what fabric designer Thomas Knauer said at Sewing Summit about being an artist: Just. Keep. Creating. So instead of quitting, I decided I could machine-applique the pieces to the background. A little bit of quilting and assembly later, and I had a finished pillow! The background fabric of the pillow is Art Gallery’s Pure Elements in Ash, and it’s backed with Kona Coal.
There are a lot of little things I’ll do differently on my next project. While the whole thing looks pretty good, I definitely have room to improve. Still, I’m happy with the finished project, especially since there were a couple hours last night when I wanted to scrap the whole project. Guess it goes to show that perseverance pays off!
The Travellin’ Stitch Blog Hop was at Stitched in Color yesterday (her Apple Stars are gorgeous!). Tomorrow it will be over at Karamat (who I am pretty sure I met at Sewing Summit!).
Hooray! I love the way your pillow turned out, and, my, aren’t those photos fetching ;-) This is a stupendous foray into EPP and a beautiful tribute to Seattle. Great work, roomie!
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Don’t you just love my giant photos! My blog is way too wide to accommodate those big photos, but I don’t care. I’m going with a slightly more narrow design soon, but I wanted to make them as big and beautiful as possible!!
the finished pillow looks great! I love the concept.
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Thanks so much! I really love the idea of taking a photo and sort of pixelating it on fabric.
I think your project looks great and I can totally see the skyline from your picture.
Excellent! I’ve done my job well then. :)
It looks great!!!! I like the elongated hexies. I would love to go to Seattle! :) Thanks for joining in:)
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Thanks Laura! It was so great meeting you on the trip. Hope your desert adventures are going well!
it looks great!!! and i just consulted to find that my post isn’t until november 2 *phew* :)
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Whew! I didn’t think this would come together, but somehow I made it work. I always work best under a deadline :) Can’t wait to see what your project is!
I love the pillow and your EPPing. Those colors are great!
Thank you Janice! I am pleased with the way it turned out.
Beautiful pillow! You had a wonderful idea to use your beautiful block! x Teje
Thank you! I love pillows a little too much. :)
so pretty
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Thank you! :)
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I have a very enthusiastic group of Facebook followers ;-)
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