Cilantro – Si!
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| “Cilantro” by Christina Fairley Erickson Freehand machine embroidery, decorative stitching and freemotion quilted |
Since I already had the machine embroidered cilantro done, all I had to finish up was the background. For this, I started with stitching the name “Cilantro” as I had with my other Salsa pieces. To do this, I printed the word on a piece of paper-piecing paper in a funky font and then just stitched the letters out and tore away to paper. Then I chose a few different decorative stitches to start with. |
| Cilantro freemotion quilting design |
Next, I wanted to fill the middle space with freemotion quilting. I drew out this design which I based on cilantro leaves. I like how it looks and was ready to try it out.
However, I then lay my machine embroidered Cilantro on top of the drawn design. I don’t think it was complementary at all! I’d like to try the leaf pattern somewhere, but this wasn’t the right place.
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| Cilantro freemotion quilting design with cilantro machine embroidery on top |
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| Background getting filled in with cubing |
So, I decided to check my favorite resource, Leah Day’s FreeMotion Quilting Project, and thought that I could slightly modify her “Cubing” design. I worked the design at an angle or on-point, as well as putting in a lot of rectangular shapes, rather than mostly all squares.
After that, I only had to applique down my machine embroidery. Due to the thin stalks and ruffled edges of the cilantro, I decided to cut the embroidery along the edge, color in the edges and machine applique it (rather than hand-applique as I did on the others.) I did put a minimal amount of trapunto batting under a few leaves and left some of the edges loose, so it has a more 3-D effect.
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Always impressive! I love this entire project and can't wait to see where it goes.
Each of these have been beautiful and inspiring!
I love the way it is coming out! Can't wait to see the finished project!
This is beautiful and it is fun to see the way the free motion quilting is going! Thanks for sharing.
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Every little bit you show gets me more and more excited to see the finished product. I love it.
Your thread painting is really extraordinary! I especially liked seeing the process to get to your finished piece.
Great choice in free motion design. I really like your leaves design but you made a good choice with the play on cubing. Great colours, I love everything about this piece.
Another fabulous piece!
Thank-you! I'm planning 9 pieces total in this series, then will put them together with sashing to complete a small art quilt.
Thanks so much! I'm going to put the leaves design away to use somewhere in the future. I do think that the cubing made a good choice and fits in better with the other pieces in the series.
Thanks!
Thank-you, Hilda- I'm struggling a little bit this week on my "peppers" piece… hope to have something to show this weekend.
Thank-you. I'm still a little up in the air how I'm going to put it all together. I'm thinking of black sashing that has freemotion quilting in the colors of the pieces.
Thank-you… I'm on a deadline for show entry!
Thank-you Connie and thanks for hosting your Tuesday party on Freemotion by the River!
A wonderful piece, and so nice that you showed how you go about to make your art.
Great series. Very realistic threadpainting.
Yours is the blog I can't wait to visit each Friday. Love this project and the explanation of your thought process.