Want to know something crazy?  I'm going away this weekend!  Yup, it's the weekend before registration and I'm running off with some girlfriends for some much-need R&R.  I knew it'd be a stretch, but I hope I can pull it off. 

Ok, so looking at my (still lengthy) To Do list as the sun goes down today, this is the last thing I needed to sew before leaving.  Ta da!

Jade Princess is a twin sized quilt graced with 20 dogwood blossom machine appliqued blocks.  Each shapely flower is sketch stitched appliqued, which creates a very serious bond that's certainly machine-washable.  To finish, I quilted around each dogwood free-motion

and then straight-lined quilted rows of chunky Aurifil 12 wt thread along the sashing.  A large stitch length and that thick thread are such a beautiful combination! 

I adore the Kona Peach with Comma Chalk Periods, so I settled on using the two for the sashing and block backgrounds to really play up that mood.  It's a bit of a peaches and cream classic, gone modern with mustard yellow and the bold jade.

This color scheme was an energizing challenge for me.  I fooled around with having two jade blocks, one darker and one lighter, but found that I preferred just the one stand-out block.  That decision made, I used the positioning of the bright yellow dogwoods to balance the bright jade Swiss Chard Pearl Bracelet.  For me the placement of each block is just so.  Love that feeling!

room and photo by Fjeldborg

Here's another look at my inspiration image so you can see where I was coming from.  The image is white-heavy, whereas my quilt is more peach-heavy.  But overall I feel like I captured what I set out to find.  Quilting from images is very grounding, creating helpful boundaries and ongoing inspiration.  I'm sure I'll do it again! 

I hadn't made advance plans for my backing (as usual), but I did something a little more intentional than my usual throw-whatever-together.  I used large cuts of Kona Ash, Kona Iron and Kona Medium Grey and then filled the last quadrant with leftover quilt top scraps.

And - bonus! - the solid backing allows the dogwood free motion quilting to show nicely.

The Dogwood Blossoms quilt pattern is included with the Penny Sampler class as a stand-alone practice project for our machine applique theme.  So, this is actually one of the first projects served up!  For each theme, I've created 2 practice projects.  These stand-alone projects are optional creative outlets and/or opportunities to practice the skills before sewing your sampler.  Of the two projects, one is relatively quick and one is an actual quilt (so, um, not that quick!).   If you choose to make the practice quilt, expect to work on it throughout the month as you also work on your Penny Sampler blocks.  Or, you could choose to set aside the practice quilt after you've had enough practice with the skill set, to pick up again after class is over or when your schedule frees up!

I haven't revealed the quick practice projects publicly, as I like to save some surprises for my students.  But, you have seen the Precise Piecing practice quilt:

And the Machine Paper Piecing practice quilt:

And that concludes my Penny Sampler previews!  On Monday I'll be back at it with the 9 am registration post, including the reveal of the Penny Sampler quilt itself.  (finally... I know!)

But first, we have a little voting to do tomorrow.  Last call on Clashy Bright mosaics!!