Thread-painted wallhanging

A new year. 364 days left to accomplish many things. Some big. Some small. Resolutions? No. I stopped doing that many years ago. All I do now is make “to do” lists and then try to cross things off my “to do” lists. Yep, I’m a list maker. And a bean counter.

I subscribe to thequiltshow.com. In 2008, they presented an appliqué Block of the Month – “Bouquets for a New Day” designed by Sue Garman. Although I don’t usually do appliqué, I find I am doing more today and then thread-painting parts of it. Something about the August block caught my eye. And I liked that I could incorporate some beading into it. And here’s the finished wallhanging. I love the bright colored flowers and the lime green leaves.

I’ve also made a slideshow with some close-ups of the thread-painting and beading.
http://anotherpat.com/ss08bathwh The appliqué is the raw edge technique. I used basting spray to hold the layers together for quilting and thread- painting. I used cotton batt. For the backing, I used sew-in interfacing. I like to use interfacing for small wallhangings as it adds stability to the piece and I don’t have any stabilizer to remove after thread-painting. If the back looks really bad after all the stitching, I make a “false” back of fabric, sewn in place just before I sew on the binding. I quilt in a few places to hold backing in place. I like to take a pic of the back to record all the stitching before the “false” backing is sewn in place.

I love the bright colors of the fabrics in this wallhanging, especially on that burgundy background!