Frieda Fox Collage Wallhanging

Frieda Fox- Laura Heine pattern
Started July 2017

   
                                     


This was a fun collage quilt to make, but not so fun to quilt it. If I every do make another one, I would get it quilted on a long arm to avoid the stickiness on the machine needle and the breakage of needles (2).
I took a workshop from Terry Rowland (a member of Central AB Quilt Guild) at The Hub, in Stettler Arena on July 7/2017.
We had to bring some fabric pieces cut out ahead of time to audition for our projects, plus a special background fabric to trace the pattern onto. It was quite a lot of work to fussy cut all the little individual pieces to create the fox. Each piece first had to have the sticky webbing put on the back.

What I learned was: USE STEAM A SEAM 2!
Any of the pieces that had the Heat Bond on the back, wouldn't stick on until they were ironed on and then they were permanent. The Steam a Seam 2 will allow the pieces to stick temporarily and they can be moved around until you are happy with their location and then ironed on permanently.

It took hours of moving the pieces around before I was completely happy with Frieda Fox.

Then came the decision for which background to use. I auditioned about 6 different ones over and over, but finally decided on the rust coloured one. I thought a fox would want to blend into the background instead of sticking out on say, a blue or bright green background.

Then I fussy cut a lot of flowers out (with Steam a Seam on the back) to put along the bottom under Frieda, and on both top corners.

Machine quilting this baby was a chore! I did a back and forth meander, "cloud-looking" stitch on the background without a problem. I used the clear monofilament on top of the appliqués and flowers. The tread often snapped and the machine needle constantly gummed up and had to be cleaned off. I broke 2 machine needles and had to buy some titanium ones to finish this project.
I suppose I probably over stitched the collage pieces and next time (if there ever is a next time) I would remember that and also try and use less layers.

Frieda Fox hang in our bedroom

Frieda Fox hangs in our bedroom on my side and I love looking at her and finding again all the tiny little pictures that are hidden on her, spool of thread, lady bug, kittens, fawn, baby bear. . :) 

It does look cute though! :)