Wandering Quilt - tree of life, Susan's

I took this picture earlier today in my flower garden. OR a somewhat flower garden. It’s basically red orange clay and top soil laid on top. Only the hardiest of plants have survived it. The water drains terribly and in the summer the ground in this spot is hard as if it is pure rock. In a nutshell, the worst spot in all of my yard to have put a flower garden.

But it runs by the fence in the backyard, and there is a table with an umbrella nearby that I like to sit at and crochet or lunch so in that aspect it was the perfect spot for my flower garden.

Only a third of everything I’ve planted there is still with us (and that doesn’t seem to stop my effort of planting anything and everything there), but without fail for three years in a row the daffodils, and then the hyacinths and then finally the tulips arrive (still waiting on them).

They are pretty, and tough little ladies.

On to Wandering Quilt

Just in case you are not familiar with traveling quilts here is the idea: Each member of your group creates a starter block and usually writes a journal with details, theme and style they would like their quilt to end up. You send your starter block to another member in your group (usually there is a list, and you send it to the next lady on the list), they have a month to add on to your starter block and get your quilt going. Then, they send it to the next woman on the list and so on and so on until your quilt arrives back to you. In the meantime, as your quilt is traveling to each member of your group, their quilts are as well, so you will be adding to their quilts.

We have 10 women in our group. That means that 9 ladies besides me will be working on my quilt and I will be working on 9 different quilts. All themed. Here is my wandering quilt.

The above picture shows a bit of Susan’s journal. If you didn’t read my first post on Susan’s Tree of Life Wandering Quilt, you can have a look here.

I left off in that post with my finished paper piece woodpecker and some bits on my plan for finishing. I have since finished.

I completely stuck with my original plan.

You might notice a not so perfect needle turn, but don’t judge me too harshly. This was my very first try with it. I loved the slowness of that work. I did most of it during a road trip and the last tiny bit was done on the sofa in my studio while chatting with my daughter (who refuses to pick up needle and thread).

The embroidery on the leaves is my favorite part. It’s very imperfect, but I kinda like it like that. The yo-yo flower blooms is another favorite. I went with purple to match Susan’s flower in the middle of her starter block.

I took every will power available to not add more to this block. I kept telling myself, “No more, Melanie.” That maximalist in me wanted to keep adding embroidery and flowers.

I did add some stitching to the bird’s feathers and neck area. I just couldn’t seem to help myself.

Here is my block added to Susan’s.

I feel pretty good about it. It’s kinda scary adding on to someone else’s work, hoping that the person you are making it for will love it. This is something that Susan is planning on putting up on her wall. So I wanted it to be as close to perfect as I could muster.

Susan made her own journal (very crafty). The pages were nice and big.

I sat last night with a couple of my Flow magazines and cut pretty birds out to glue down in her journal.

I’m kinda a magazine junkie. You can visit Flow here. It’s my favorite. I love beautiful magazines. And this one has the thick paper, and always has art pullouts that you can put on your wall for display, stickers, gift cards. It’s a paper lover magazine and the stories are always rich and meaningful.

They are a little pricier than US magazines, so when I’m on a budget, I head down to Books a Million, buy a latte and then just sit there and read the magazine.

So Susan’s quilt is off to it’s next adventure and I await the next quilt I’ll be working on. I had thought it was Star Trek themed, but I think I don’t get to that one until late September. I’m pretty certain the next quilt I work on is ocean inspired, but we will see when it gets here.