The Value of a Stitch

It's been a good start to the week. I have been happily creating Poppies. 

     My quilts as of now have been Seasons, Coral Reef, Yummy Fruits and Eat Your Veggies. I started designing about a year ago. It was time to jump to another subject. This time I'm revisiting our trip to Italy. Any of you who have been there are probably longing to go back and wander the Tuscan hills as I am. Perhaps there's a Tuscany Getaway in the future! Anyone interested?

 

So, where do I begin? I wander through my hundreds of photos and then work up a folder with what are my favorites. I must pick through those to see which really show a good variety of subject matter and of course COLOR to put into a wool quilt.

After deciding on the photos I gather my materials....meaning beautiful colors of hand dyed felted wool and fabrics that go with the theme I have chosen. The cotton fabrics I have picked are by Silvia Vassileva for P&B Textiles. It is called Silvia's Sonnet and I just love it! The wool is not just any wool, but beautifully dyed wool by in the Patch designs. When you have a vision for a project you need the right materials. 

   I'm on my way with fabric in hand. The first blocks were taken from images in Florence at a the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. It includes the Dome designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. It is an amazing piece of architecture and worth climbing to the top of the Cupola and see the view of Florence. The outside of the cathedral is made of pink, white and green marble. Beautiful. Here's a link if you want to learn more about the Cathedral. We visited numerous cathedrals and saw amazing details. 

 Once images are put into pattern pieces where do you go? There is such a difference when you add embroidery stitches and that is something that I want to stress to those working with wool appliqué. Give it a try and you will notice a big difference. There are beautiful threads available to the embroidery audience and many tutorials. The Stitch of the Month page on my website is available to you for learning new stitches. Stitch of the Month 

 This is a door handle that I spotted walking down a street. I couldn't resist including it in my new wall quilt. 

A finished wool piece can be hand quilted, machine quilted or recently people are trying the "big stitch" quilting technique. At this point I am not thinking about the quilting but happy to keep working on the Poppies. 
Happy Stitching this week! 
Felice