April FMQ challenge....

Thanks to Darlene at QuiltShopGal for hosting another quilting challenge...  this month the guest tutor was Christina Cameli from A Few Scraps..... I have been reading her blog for a while and now with this challenge I ordered one of her books... it arrived last week and I got straight to work....

With my new book in hand I chose Option #3 on this post HERE which was to make a cushion using any of Christina's designs in the book....

(There are a lot of pictures but I am showing steps in my creation ... just skip to the end to see the final cushion)

I have some sand coloured fabric and I wanted to give it a watery type feel in the quilting....

Here is the cushion top marked, sandwiched and pinned with guidelines for my first pattern....

This design is called Tideway...

I get frustrated with stopping and starting... I make kinks!!!  If I start a lot slower and concentrate it is better... (but I have a tendency to visit la-la land when I have been concentrating too long!!)  

... on one of the back sleeves I did this design called Sylph..... ( I think I chose it for it's name as well as it's look)

... I need to slow down and concentrate more on doing the pebbles... not so good on the 'travelling'

.. and on the other back sleeve I did Lithe .....  I found this one nice and easy and calming to do.....

I used a thicker glossy embroidrey thread for the main quilting... then I wanted a bit of sparkle for the water in the Tideway quilting so I pulled out this HUGE cone of fine metallic thread

(tension needed to go to no tension at all and the cone is so big it sat on the table instead of in the thread place on the machine)

 .. you can't see the sparkle in the picture - it is quite subtle... but I did like the look of the finer thread for this part ....

... so I added another few lines of quilting with it into the back cushion sleeves....

(I think I went a bit overboard quite honestly)

... all three pieces with the extra bit of bling added.... and a picture of Christina's book

I finished off the cushion just with very gently rounded corners....

... it is a bigger cushion this time with 20" sides. This is the back showing the two different designs

.. and here it is at my favourite place to sit on the veranda....

I was going to put it in the gift box but Hubz has claimed it....

I am pleased with my new book.. there are heaps of ideas and Christina gives brief but clear instructions on how to do them.... with plenty of pictures (I do like pictures)

You can join the challenges any time if you feel like learning and practicing your FMQ.... QuiltShopGal always has lots of links and information ...

Righto, Gotto Go.... Darlene has a linky for all the participants in the challenge so I am off HERE to have a look see what others have made... there is always such inspirational quilting .. and we are all learning....