Dandelions

Yesterday I continued sewing up the hexagons from the one block wonder quilt, and have them all complete. I haven’t decided how I want to assemble the quilt, though.

There’s not a lot of contrast in the fabric, not are there any quiet sections to give the eye resting places, so I’m having a hard time getting the sense of motion I would like. It sort of looks like a big blob. I love each hex by itself, but when cozied up to its neighbors I can’t find an arrangement that is pleasing. I feel like I may need to add some solid colored hexes to stand off the swirls. It is certainly a fun and rewarding exercise to make these, though!

Today I did some free motion quilting. I was inspired by Jenny Lyon’s “Morning Breeze” quilt, so tried a similar experiment: 

I’m generally happy with the color work and unhappy with the background quilting. I was having an extremely hard time seeing my lines and ended up working myself into corners where I had to break thread or sew out of an area blindly. There’s also too much movement in the background to properly show the color work off. But these things are why I’m making a sampler.

As to the red work, other than thread breaking issues related to my treadle belt being overly loose (need to fix that) I’m quite happy. I didn’t think I would like the effect of the overlapping leaves and stems, but actually I don’t find it distracting at all. More experimentation warranted, for sure!