don't worry bee happy

I wrote on a quilt (and it wasn't the label)! I'm sharing how I added text to a recent quilt finish and having a little catch up...

I sent this heart to Jenny for special secret quilt she's making. It's a lovely foundation paper pieced pattern by unicornharts, you can find the free Hearts fpp pattern in her shop on Craftsy. The print fabrics are from the new Autumn Vibes collection by Maureen Cracknell. You can find UK stockists through Hantex.

Despite it being a little way off, you may be already thinking of makes for the Christmas season. This quilt is from Quilting for Christmas, Leisure Arts by House of White Birches. I made it for Sewing Quarter.

The pattern is clever, the blocks are creating using positive and negative appliqué. The ornament outline is made by cutting the continuous design. It was a fun one to make and  for some reason it slightly reminds me of Baymax from Big Hero 6!

I've been restrained about buying fabric but these panels were too good to miss! I've been buying Lucy Engels handprinted panels for some time and, although I already have a couple of The Bees in different colourways, I adore this pink version! The black and white Kiku print is stunning and it's totally inspired me to try something new... stay tuned for that! To shop Lucy's fabric click here.

Now about the text! I was given this panel to make a quilt for Sewing Quarter. You can see it says Bee Happy, and above that there's quite a bit of yellow space! Immediately I wanted to write Don't Worry. There wasn't time to do appliqué, which would be fiddly if I wanted it to be in a similar font. I could have embroidered it but I wanted to try something else. I wrote out the text free hand, traced it and used my free motion foot to stitch the letters. 

It wasn't as bold as I wanted and there were some gaps between the stitches. Enter the Micron pen, usually I use this for occasionally writing quilt labels but it was the perfect solution for filling in the gaps.

I'm really pleased with it, though it does look washed out in the quilt photos I took in the studio,  I do think I could have gone a bit bolder. Still it was good trying something different and this has encouraged me to do more with text! For anyone that would like to try this (or has the panel) I've scanned my lettering for you to use, click here for the PDF.

The border sections of the quilt were made with the Creative Grids Hexagon Trim Tool. It makes lots of different hexie blocks and this is the easiest way to make trapezoid / half hexagons, which are sewn together so quickly. I embroidered some simple flowers on the panel too, for me it's always nice to add a bit of hand sewing.

Over to you... I'm working on some back to basic and informative blog posts, with tips and ideas for new and experienced quilters alike. Is there anything you'd like to see? Any areas of quilting you struggle with or general topics you would like to read about? Let me know in a comment below. Thank you!