Christmas Foundation Pieced Banner | ||||||||||||||
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One of my year 2001 goals was to learn to do some foundation piecing for quilting. I've had the book for well over a year. I've seen this technique done over and over on TV, and it looked easy enough for me to try without benefit of a class. So on the Friday after Thanksgiving, since we all had the day *off* and the stitchery I'm currently working on is to be a surprise for my daughter's birthday next week (I didn't want her to accidentally see it by walking in on me stitching), I decided to try something new. I turned off the TV and made myself sit down and read through all the directions. Then I set to! Now the colors in this piece are sort of funny because I did a true scrap quilt — using the stuff I have on hand which is mostly not 100% cotton. But that's what our foremothers did too, right? I pulled out some fabrics, cut 'em up in little pieces, and made four Christmas Tree blocks. Two of the blocks have a single triangle for the tree, the other two blocks have a tree made out of strips. (My favorite is the one made of plaids and small flowers!) Then I put the little blocks together with some green sashing and turned them into a small banner. My 8 year old daughter helped me decorate the trees with beads, buttons, baubles, sequins, metallic fibers, etc. I then quilted the border with stars, holly leaves, Christmas trees and a swirling line of my own design. Here's a huge image (289 KB) of the completed banner so that you can see the detail of my piecing, embellishment and quilting. I had to splice two scanned images together, so it's not the best image, but you can get the idea. The banner measures approximately 9" x 12.5" in real life.
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