Vista

When I shared about my recent finish, Golden Honey, I told you I was hoping to jump into another small scrappy improv project soon, and just a few days later, I did! This one got its name from the main fabric - Ruby Star Society Horizon, a cotton linen canvas by Alexia Marcelle Abegg from 2019. I think the color is Sand, though I can't find out much about it on the web. The pieces I found in my scrap bucket are left from when I recovered my pressing table a few years ago. Which reminds me, I need to do it again! And by the way, though the fabric is considered canvas, it's not super heavy, and was plenty easy to combine with quilter's cotton. 

Anyway, I struggled a bit deciding what other fabrics to use with the goldish print. There were just a few pieces of solid gold and orange I found, but then I tried red with it and really liked it. I'm thinking this would be considered an analogous color scheme - do you agree?

I really don't have much to say about the arrangement of the fabrics.... they just sort of evolved as I began piecing and playing with them. I do like what I ended up with, but I think what really makes this piece is the quilting. I began by quilting all of the red portions with Aurifil 28wt 2260 [Wine], one of my very favorite red thread colors. I quilted pretty densely, while playing around with stitching shapes also. It was all very fluid and in the moment.

Once the red was done, I went hunting for something that would coordinate with the canvas print, but none of the golds I had worked well at all. So I thought about using an off-white, and that's when I realized, my thread stash is realllly low on those. The best I had was an Aurifil 12wt 2000 [Light Sand]. That's a lot heavier than I usually quilt with, but I referred to the Aurifil recommended uses, and saw that machine embroidery was one of them. I figured the amount of quilting I was planning on this small (15.5" x 21.5") piece could qualify as embroidery, and decided to try it. 

It definitely worked! In fact, as I got started basically outlining seam lines and creating shapes, the 12wt became an integral part of the whole piece. It really stands out, and in a way, mimics the lines and shapes of that focus fabric. At first, I was going to leave all the red unquilted, but obviously changed my mind in a few places.

Obligatory quilt back photo comprised of stash bits and pieces....

Vista is bound in Kona Rich Red - another favorite red - and in a switch from my norm, the industrial feel of the piece made me choose to machine bind it. So that all made for a fairly quick finish, and was thoroughly enjoyable. I've got a few random sewing projects coming up this week, but in between all that, I already have an incentive for my next piece. In my basket of batting scraps, I found one that already had a backing. It must have been trimmed off a larger quilt project, and I'm excited to let it lead me into something new.

Linking up with Favorite Finish for February with Quilting JETgirl.