Project Quilting 16.2: Ombre

This week's Project Quilting Ombre challenge theme was right up my alley as I absolutely love gradients! Sunday night, I pulled out a stack of textured solid fashion swatches that I found in Fabmo's Priceless Treasures' room , where everything is priceless, aka Free!

Monday was certainly an emotionally challenging day on several fronts and so I turned to breathwork to help. This inspired me to pull out my hand-carved breathe block to to print onto a gradient of blue swatches. The block printing was truly meditative and restorative as I found myself taking a deep breath with each print.

Tuesday evening, I turned my attention to block-printing some of my favorite floral stamps onto a warm gradient of yellow, orange, red, magenta, and violet.

And then I took a few days off to mull over design ideas my project. Nothing like a looming deadline to help me rally and resume progress! Friday night, I trimmed all the block-printed bits and added a few more fabrics to my palette...

And played with patchwork ideas to create a blue sky.

I was teaching for most of Saturday, but once the workshop was finished, I got to working on my ombre project. First task was to fussy cut squares from this green print to create a floral ombre checkerboard...

...and a white wavy lines designer swatch was incorporated into the patchwork sky. A few hours later, the top was pieced and ready for quilting.

I kept the quiltilng fairly simple with some zig zag stitching inspired by patterning within the the green squares...

...And undulating lines across the blue sky.

By midnight, my piece was quilted and faced.

Flora Power, Finishes 24" x 20"

This piece honors that glorious colors and biodiversity represented amongst the flora kingdom as well as the vital role of photosynthesis; the process by which plants use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose while releasing oxygen into the environment. Plants also have the power to purify the air through “Phytoremediation,” a process where they absorb harmful chemicals such as ammonia, benzene, and formaldehyde.