Dragon.Fly

Are you sitting down? Big news. I finished something larger than a bag, mug rug or mini quilt...don't get too excited, it won't cover a bed. But it is looking mighty fine on my dining room table right now.

If you've been visiting for a while, you may remember that I pieced this table runner last spring (but who's counting the months it's been curing in my closet, right?). I got inspired to complete it by the dangling carrot of EQ7 and 'generous fabric packs' offered up by the crew at Fat Quarterly and their "Win It to Be In It" contest. They are looking for completed projects from any issue of FQ mag and I believe this was in the very first issue!

The pattern is called Flying Fish Table runner and it was designed by the incomparable John, of Quilt Dad. He's been ever so sweet to comment on my Flickr photos, too!

The fabrics are mostly from Japan. B went there on business about 10 years ago and I arranged for the wife of his Japanese colleague to purchase $50 of 'authentic Japanese' fabric for me. There has never been a project that inspired me to use them - they are just so special and I knew that I had to make something for myself with them. The minute I saw John's table runner, I knew it would be perfect. I paired the prints with Kona Ash.

Quilting was tough to decide. I ripped out a lot of attempts. Finally I came to the conclusion that simple would be best. Many of the fabrics (including the border) featured dragonflies, so I took advantage of the larger pieced areas to embroider (Sashiko-style) some dragonflies. The rest of the geese are stitched in the ditch and a simple running stitch fills the borders. The hand work is done with Perle 8 (Valdani and Prescencia) cotton. I have to thank my pal Dianne for donating the 'Fusiboo' batting for this project while we were on retreat. [Side note: the batting initially fused really well by following manufacturers directions, but did not stay fused at all after manipulating the quilt around my machine for quilting]

Even if this goes no where in the Fat Quarterly contest, I feel like a winner just to have completed it! Does anyone else get stuck after finishing a quilt top? I am just so impatient to move on to the next thing - I am terrible at finishing the bigger stuff!

I've linked this post to my pal Lynne's blog, Lily's Quilts. She's got a fun new monthly feature where you link to your fav project of the past month. I chose this one (but I do love this one too) just because it's been languishing for so long and now it's DONE! yahoo.

Click on the button to see what everyone else loved working on in March!