Thread Thursday: Express Your Love

Way back in 2013 Leah Day started a quilt along called Express Your Love.

I was taken with the goddess design and decided to print the design and give it a shot.  This design fits on a one-yard piece of fabric.

Late in 2014 I finally traced the design onto my Kona cotton, loaded the long arm and got stitching.  I traced the design using a Frixion pen.  These erasable pens are great for this kind of work.

I picked a really busy backing for this mini quilt.  The words were written by hand and then I traced, as best I could, with the long arm.  I changed colors with each ray and tried to use as many different quilting designs as possible.

How many colors did I use?  I didn't use all that I have, but I didn't skimp, either.  I think I had more than 25 but fewer than 30 different colors.  I used several more than once, but I tried to keep changing with different areas of the quilt.  For the top thread I used all Magnifico threads.  These are shiny thread suitable for quilting or embroidery.

I think I spent most of a day doing the quilting on this.  It isn't all perfect quilting by any means.  I wasn't going to stop and rip.  I wanted it done.  Ripping won't make you a better quilter.

Each new color let me add new dimension to the quilt.  I learned so much doing this quilt.

If I do this quilt again, the results will be very different.  I think I learned a great deal with this one.

After I trimmed it I had enough of the backing fabric to make the binding.  I decided a machine finished binding would be just the ticket.

Have you done a quilting or sewing project that really challenged you?  Something totally outside your comfort zone?  I'd love to hear about it.