Anna Maria Horner Showcase: Passion & Play

Several of the products featured in this post were provided by Aurifil threads, FreeSpirit Fabrics, and Anna Maria Horner

Aurifil invited me to participate in an Anna Maria Horner Showcase, to showcase her Passionflower fabric collection.   Each participant received three fat quarters from the collection, and a coordinating spool of Aurifil thread (shown in the top left picture) to create a project of our choice.  I purchased some additional fat quarters from a local quilt shop, including a yard of the striped print (top right photo).

The striped print reminded me of an Indian sari, and inspired me to create another Kawandi-style mini quilt.  I cut out smaller sections of the stripe to feature throughout my quilt.  The first step was creating my four corners, which were carefully pieced from one of the striped panel sections.  Once my four corners were established, I worked my way into the center through a combination of piecing and top-stitch applique to create a medallion style design.  Once again, I totally immersed myself in the design process and forgot to take more step-by-step photographs. 

Working My Way Into the Center with Layers of Stripes and Pattern

The outside border came together fairly quickly, but filling in the center stumped me for a bit, hence the pause for a photo.  I absolutely loved using the Cartwheel print to create florets for each of the inside corners, but struggled on how best to fill in around those corner units?  In the photo above, I really liked the pink stripe, but found it overpowered the entire design.  I set them aside and began to audition alternate layers of pattern.  While I was playing with a few different options, I cut a small square from the Imposter print for use in the center panel.  By placing it over the teal stripe, it yielded an intersection of stripes that all radiated from this one square.  Once my center was completed filled in, I did some minor finetuning and then used Elmer's School glue to baste all the individual units into place for quilting.

Ready for Quilting

Initially I planned to keep the quilting simple with either parallel lines or a spiral into the center, making for a quick finish.  However, I could not resist the urge to enhance all those fun patterns with some playful free motion quilting, all completed with the spool of thread provided with the fat quarters:  Loden Green (#2840) in 50wt.

Free Motion Quilting Fun

Using the solid pink for my quilt back leads to a pretty spectacular wholecloth quilt design!!

Wholecloth Quilt Back

I couldn't resist sneaking in one more detail shot of the piecing and quilting!!

Passion & Play, Finishes 20" x 26"

Many thanks again to Aurifil, FreeSpirit Fabrics, and Anna Maria Horner for this fun opporunity to play.  Below is my finished mini quilt...

Anna Maria Horner + Aurifil = AMAZING!