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Friday, March 8, 2013

A Slice of Lime...

Limes by Christina Fairley Erickson
Freehand machine embroidery, freemotion quilting and decorative stitching
Do you get more and more productive the closer you get to a deadline?  This is a pet peeve of mine (not to mention my husband's!)  Why is it that we have to get right up to a deadline before we get motivated?  I really thought that with my finishing each of the 5 x 7 pieces each week, I'd be looking great for the Salsa show's deadline of April 6.  Perhaps I am doing fine... it's a bit hard for me to know, since I've never made a quilt-as-you-go quilt.  I suppose I'm worried that putting it all together will prove a bit harder than I've imagined.  Two more 5 x 7 blocks to go.

Here are the other pieces completed so far:




Any thoughts on what I should do for sashing and putting them all together?

The lime seemed like it might be a bit tricky- there was a lot of reflective light in the photo and the juiciness of the cut lime.  I decided to start with the darker parts of the sliced half, and then added progressively lighter colors.  For the whole lime, I began with the outer edges (the parts furthest away) and worked my way towards the center.  
When I finished the machine embroidery, I completed the background with more decorative stitching and freemotion quilting.  I used the same sort of squared stippling that I'd used with the Peppers, which I'd learned on Leah Day's FreeMotion Quilting Project.

Finally, I added the limes on top with extra batting to give them dimension (hand applique.) 
Working on the freemotion quilting
Quilted background completed

You Might Also Be Interested In:

5 x 7 Week 3- The
 Start of Salsa!
New 5 x 7 Challenge
Pieces 
Juggling Many 
Projects










Blogs I Recommend and Link-up:

Freemotion Quilting Project

Freshly Pieced

Nina Marie Sayre's Art Quilts

Quilt Matters

Richard and Tanya Quilts

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

18 comments:

  1. Wow! Stunning!!! I also feel the same way as far as deadlines. Quilters just must be procrastinators at heart! Keep up the beautiful work!

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  2. What can I say? Pass the toquilla and I don't even drink. Your ability to create a sense of light, shadow and depth improve with each block.

    I wouldn't add sashing. Instead use the quilt as you go method and select a bright yellow fabric as the binding strip. If you wanted you could additional embroidery in the binding strip, but I probably wouldn't. A solid yellow would frame each block, give the eye a place to rest and provide a unifying factor, beyond the fiesta colors and edibles.

    This is going to be a stunning quilt.

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  3. These are cute! Great idea stitching onto a printed photo! I like the background designs too, especially on the tomato.

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  4. Love your work! It brings such a great dimension to it.

    Have you tried debuting different fabrics by laying the blocks out on top of a potential sashing fabric? Take a photo and see how they look to you. I'd try a black along with some other solids and see how it frames the blocks out.

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  5. This is a wonderful series. You could make a quilt out of it, but you could also make a series of framed or mounted wall art pieces.

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  6. I am in awe of each new design as you post it. These limes look so refreshing and realistic, I'm tempted to pass the salt shaker! Yum!

    And, yes, I work better close to the deadline as well. Wish I could be one of those planners who space everything out evenly and allow plenty of time at the end, but I'm not.

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  7. Your lime is gorgeous. I love they way you've accomplished the shading. I agree with Gynned, these are beautiful without sashing :)

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  8. These are so amazing, Christina! Whoop whoop!!

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  9. The lime block looks great. I agree a very the blocks and try different colors. I would go with black or a dark color.

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  10. You do such fabulous work! I have been watching as you create each block. It's very impressive. I'm excited and eager to see the next 2 blocks.

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  11. Wow, it looks fabulous! Thanks for linking up to TGIFF!

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  12. The limes look great! I like that you added them on top of the quilted piece. Fun to have that extra dimension!

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  13. They are amazing...have yu thought about making the sashing stripes different sizes of rectangles but all the same colour?

    It will be interesting to see your final piece.

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  14. Your colors are great! I can't wait to see all of your blocks together in a quilt.

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  15. Hi, Christina. Beautiful stitching, as usual. Besides the compositions in this series, I LUV your stitched backgrounds. So original and pleasing.
    best, nadia

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  16. Thank you for linking up in March to Richard and Tanya Quilts on our Link a Finish Friday. We will have a new linkup available every Friday. So stop by and share what you have been working on and check out what others are doing.

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