Blogger's Quilt Festival ~ Witco's Daisies ~ Fall 2016

I'm excited to be able to participate (after watching from the sidelines for many years) in the Fall 2016 edition of the Blogger's Quilt Festival hosted by Amy at Amy's Creative Side.  How can this be the 8th year of the Blogger's Quilt Festival already?...time flies!

Bloggers may enter up to two quilts, each with its own newly written post, into different categories.

For my first entry, into the applique category, I've chosen Witco's Daisies, originally made for the Triangle Quilt Challenge for QuiltCon West 2016.

Witco's Daisies by Paige Alexander

You can read my original post about Witco's Daisies, but here are some details along with other in-process photos and some taken today down at the barn.

Quilt Stats:

• Finished size:  31" x 22"
• Fabrics, top: Cotton Couture in Avocado by Michael Miller, Soft White and Black; Woodgrain in Bark from Aviary 2 by Free Spirit for covering buttons and binding
• Fabrics, backing: Bear Essentials 2 in Lime by P&B Textiles
• Fusibles: Lite Steam-A-Seam 2, bottom layer and 805 Wonder-Under, top layer
• Buttons:  1 1/2" covered by Dritz
• Batting: Warm & Natural
• Thread: Aurifil 50 wt. 5016 Olive Green for quilting and Mettler Metrosene for applique

Witco's Daisies photographed on the barn

Techniques:

To prevent shadowing (my #1 quilting pet peeve) of the darker background fabric through the white daisy petals, I used a double layer of the cotton couture for the petals and fused them the background.  It worked like a charm!  The Cotton Couture is the perfect weight, not to thick, for this technique. 

The applique is a zigzag satin stitch by machine.  I explain my applique process in a tutorial here for a pillow with a vintage string of lights.

The straight line quilting was done with a walking foot on my Bernina 153 Quilters Edition using Auriful 5016.  I quilted directly over the appliqued elements.  This photo was taken before the covered buttons were added.

Witco's Daisies before adding covered buttons

I tried to achieve a landscape feel with the angled quilting at the bottom. Here it is on my design wall after trimming and before adding the binding or covered buttons.  

Witco's daisies trimmed before adding binding and buttons

Inspiration:

You may wonder why I added the wood fabric covered buttons as seen here from more of a profile view.  

Witco's Daisies from an angle

The quilt was inspired from this 1960's artwork by the Western International Trading Company (Witco) featuring Tiki style wood elements with Midcentury Modern/Danish influences.  Permission was granted to closely replicate the artwork with more details given in my original post.

Witco's Daisies with wooden accents from the 1960's

 (Photo by DejaVuLB used with permission)

One more photo taken on the barn where you can see the binding detail using the woodgrain fabric.

Woodgrain fabric used for binding and buttons to emulate wood detail in Witco's Daisies

I'm so glad you stopped by!  If you're new to Quilted Blooms, you can read more about me here and see some of my finished quilts here.

You can read about my other entry in mini category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival, Plus Me + You, here and my original post can be found here.


Thanks to Amy for hosting the 2016 Fall edition of the Blogger's Quilt Festival and to all of the wonderful sponsors.  Below are the 11 categories and links to each so you can see all the fabulous quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

• Mini Quilts (Plus Me + You)
• Small Quilts
• Large Quilts
• Applique Quilts (Witco's Daisies entered here)
• Art Quilts
• Hand Quilted Quilts
• Home Machine Quilted
• Modern Quilts
• Original Designs
• ROYGBIV Quilts (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet)
• Scrappy Quilts