Monday, May 4, 2015

Secret Garden

I could not wait to finish my April Aurifil Designer Mystery BOM 2015.  April's designer was John Kubiniec of Big Rig Quilting and he gave us a pattern called Secret Garden.  One thing that is not a secret...I fell in love with the pattern as soon as I saw it.

I knew exactly what fabric to pull from my stash to bring my version to life.  I have a ton of Moda's Miss Kate left over from last years Aurifili Designer Mystery BOM; not to mention I'm doing Pat's Vacation Time BOM in Miss Kate as well.  I just needed to decide on a background fabric.  I pulled a medium gray and white polka dot fabric and a white on white polka dot fabric as possible choices.


I chose the white on white fabric because of the contrast it would provide. 


This one pieced together quickly and I don't recall pulling my seam ripper out at any point...so win/win for me.  When it came to picking out my thread colors I was actually torn between matching threads to the colors in the quilt or just using Aurifil #2021 white.  I wanted to figure out a quilting plan before I committed one way or the other.  So out came the Plexiglas and dry erase markers.  (note: if you decided to try this method make sure you mark the edges of the plexiglas with painters tape.  It's too easy to get into drawing mode and mark on your fabric.) 

I came up with two similar quilting plans.  The biggest difference between the two ended up being the background stitching.


It came down to cross hatching in the background or ribbon candy.  I think both would have looked fantastic on this little gem, but I decided to go with the ribbon candy; it's just fun.  Since "fun" was the theme of this quilt I decided to match my thread colors.  I can never have too much Aurifil thread :)


I went a little crazy with the batting on this one.  At one point I was afraid I had possibly ruined it.  The last mini quilt I finished I used two layers of a natural batting.  On this one I grabbed two layers of a miscellaneous batting I had laying around.  After I finished stitching in the ditch and the other straight lines, it looked too poofy and slightly out of shape.  


But I forced myself to keep moving on, hoping that dense quilting would help tame the beast.  And I'm really glad I did.  Introducing Miss Kate's Secret Garden...



I used scribbling in the white areas around the peach to add shadow and make the peach pop out.  
I need to try to block it again.  It is still not quite square and I think the possible cheap batting maybe to blame.  It's time to get rid of these scraps lying around.  But all of these mini quilts are for me and I love them, imperfections and all.
Chubby Churn DashFlurry, Secret Garden, March's Mini

Can't wait to see who and what the May BOM will bring.  In the mean time, here is a peak of my Vacation Time Blocks so far.  


If you are looking for a BOM to join, please give both of these a try.  Pat Sloan and Aurifil will never steer you wrong.

3 comments:

Handmade by Joan said...

Your mini quilts look great! Your quilting design really makes that quilt.

Luanne said...

Love your colors, love your quilting, and love how the peach poofs!

KaHolly said...

Stunning!

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