I've started staging Britton's room, which included painting all the pink walls a gender-neutral green ("Romaine" by Sherwin-Williams). She used to have a canopy over her bed, but we removed it since it had turned into a dust-covered mess! She needed something over her bed, and I happened to be flipping through quilt posts and saw an old review of "Sweet Tweets" - a quilting book. I fell in love with these birds, and the technique of "thread sketching" - going around the outside of the appliqué multiple times in overlapping stitches. It should look like you've sketched the design out in pencil. I figured I'd give it a try - worst case scenario, if it didn't work out, I could throw it in the trash and buy a print from Home Goods instead!
I merged two designs from the book, because I really liked the heart "leaves" on the trees from one quilt, and the two birds with a quilt from another. I quilted the quilt before adding it to the big quilt, so it would feel fluffy.
I couldn't resist a little heart and arrow with "B"! Originally I had planned to leave the trees empty, but it felt so bare. So I added "sketches" of tree bark to fill it in.
I did my loopy free motion quilting on the background in a pale blue, then added this beautiful paisley as the border. I finished the quilt up with purple gingham binding cut on the bias, and attached a quilt sleeve. Then I just put a dowel through the quilt sleeve, tied some white ribbon on either side, and hung it up. This is my first wall quilt ever, and I admit that it turned out very sweet, plus Britton gets a kick out of the tiny quilt. I'd definitely try thread sketching again - what a fun technique!
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