First of all, I want to thank everyone who made a comment on my last post. I was overwhelmed by your kind words and compliments, and I miss all of you already.
The Christmas quilt is finally done, so I am looking forward to hanging up a completed quilt this year, instead of just a top. The quilt is named for the vintage coloring book that was the source of the patterns (all available in a previous post). I have a few of these “follow-the-colors” type books, and I think they make cute embroidery patterns. The idea was to use your crayon to fill in the different colors which were already outlined with the suggested color. These books are even less creative than a normal coloring book, since you can’t even pick your own colors, but I do love the designs, and think I did use the suggested colors in almost every block. As a kid I was messy, but I liked to keep my coloring books neat, always staying in the lines. If my little brother or sister scribbled in my coloring book, I would freak out.
There are lots more embroidered tops in my quilting queue, and I wish I could think of some more interesting quilting patterns. Although I am fond of cross-hatching on embroidered quilts, I feel like it’s going to get tiresome after awhile. It’s sort of tricky quilting through the embroidery, particularly when it’s more dense, like the alphabet quilt. I usually do what I’ve done in this quilt — outline the perimeter of the embroidery designs, adding some interior quilting, if necessary, to fill in any larger areas; then quilt the cross-hatch pattern in the background. If you have any suggestions for hand quilting patterns on embroidered quilts, I would love to hear them.
Santa’s Follow-the-Colors Quilt
hand embroidered, machine pieced, hand quilted
Martha Dellasega Gray, 2012
54″ x 51″
