Oh, So Deliciously Blue

Sometimes you like the projects that you undertake; sometimes you realize this is not your favorite project; sometimes you fall head over heels in love with each component as you work on them.

Deliciously Blue has been a labor of love from the moment that I started. The more I worked on it; the more enamored I became. I made this pattern (Red Delicious, by Esther Aliu) in red and gold two years ago, loved it and gave it away. As I looked at photos of it once it was gone, I knew I had to make one for myself.

Remaking a pattern is a wonderful challenge. You have navigated the sticky, tricky parts so you know you can do it better. But you also want it to be different and not simply an imitation. It needs to stand on it’s own merit and have it’s own personality.

This time, I knew, I would make it in blues & teals. I painted walls in our new home with periwinkle blue, bold teal and soft sage-y green. This new version should compliment our new home. And I would use with metallic thread and fabrics, because I love “shiny” and had plenty of blues and metallic fabric in my stash.

The background is Moda Peacock Metallic Grunge, a deep and lusciously colored fabric with patches of metallic gold and deep blue. It had been in my stash a while. Kaufman Empress metallic fat quarters and a small yardage, Klimt and some other odds and ends of batik (all in my stash) were used for the appliques. Jason Yenter bits also found their way in and are used for the cherry blossom leaves, some of the cherries, nd the narrow sashing. Once the squares were joined, I purchased the border fabric at a local quilt shop.

Superior Threads variegated gold and variegated silver, along with Magnifico in a deep blue and a variegated Fantastico green/orange used for the applique. MonoPoly was also used for SID, outlining and a bit of the quilting. Superior Threads Kimono Silk thread in pale blue, gold white were used for background quilting, along with navy for the narrow sashing. Superior Threads So Fine 50wt was used for border quilting and the bird square pebbling.

I used the silk thread for backgound quilting – it is very fine, 100wt thread – to make sure that I didn’t overwhelm or distract from the beautiful grunge effects in the background fabric. I started with a size 16 needle and had to go down to a size 14 on my Tiara. That is a small needle size, rarely used, for quilting with a sit down machine.

You can read about the applique work on the individual squares in three earlier blogs from June and July. Although, in reviewing, I see that Block 5 – the fan – was redone. And Block 10 is missing, so here are the applique details for the revised Block 5 and for Block 10 never made it into an earlier post. Here they are!

And some details from the Wave blocks. I could not resist adding some more fishes, they insisted on joining the party! Plus, the metallic thread bubbles were so fun to add. The “bubble” stitch is a deco stitch on my Bernina 480 SE.

And here are all the blocks, quilted.

I hope you have enjoyed Deliciously Blue. It was a joy to make.

Happy quilting!

Lennea