Graduation Quilt In Progress

Long overdue to write on my blog. (Once again!) I have been really busy working on my daughter's graduation quilt. She wanted something with a tree; but, she wanted it to be sort of abstract. This is what I have ended up with. Well, almost...I'm far from done.

Here is a really bad picture of the quilt in progress. I still have to put on the borders and then applique the photos on the outer borders as well. I have the photos printed out and will blog more about that process too.

I really love applique. You can just have so much fun with it and be as creative as you want. I made swirls on template plastic and cut out the shapes. Then I traced several different sizes I had cut out onto "light steam-a-seam 2". I then peeled off the backing and placed the steam-a-seam onto the wrong side of the fabric. I cut out all of the shapes and placed them where I wanted them on the quilt background. I pinned them in place until I had the leaves in the all of the places I thought worked out best for my design. I ironed them in place.

I embroidered inspirational words with Madeira Rayon verigated thread on to purple fabric and then repeated the steam-a-seam process making circles instead with the words in the center.

I still have to add more roots. Also, the outside border is the same deep purple as the plums with the words in the main part of the quilt. The outside border should be 4 1/2" sewn in and then I will applique photos onto the border. I am going to border each photo with a 1/4 bias strip. and quilt over each strip.

This slightly blurry pic below is a close up of one of the plums.

Happy sewing all. Now back to work for me!