Preponderance of Pears Sudoku Update

Well... It's been awhile (March 23) since my last Preponderance of Pears Sudoku Quilt progress report. I was waiting to post the finished project, but that appears to be too long of a wait. So here's what's been happening...

The pear fabric (on the right) wasn't quite the right color -- wanted to add some red -- so I played with raspberry tea to dye the fabric. What a happy surprise with the resulting richer orange color...

I messed up the order of my pictures. The last "preponderance of pears" picture was suppose to be next before the closeup... I free motion stitched and stuffed my focal point pears... Still not real accurate with my free motion stitching so I'm calling these pears "organic looking" with the squiggly lines. I like the pears and I worked a long time on them, but... they don't look right on the quilt. I tried adding some embellishment (red grid below) and that was too busy... I'm at a standstill... I have a Preponderance of Pears Sudoku Quilt with no PEARS! I learned a new stitch (pictured below) which I love -- Spiral Trellis Stitch -- which looks lovely in the rose color with my quilt. I could try to make pears out of this stitch but it would take me forever...

My embellishments (pictured below) are coming along slowly. I've finished the #9 and #3 squares. The lace, which I raspberry tea dyed to add a touch of pink to cut the stark contrast, is on the #9 squares. The red ball point pins are on the #3 squares (colored white pins with Sharpie pens). Put raspberry mesh over the yellow spotted squares to add color and texture and I'm going to add some kind of fiber to that to represent the #6.

Lots of "organic" pears that just don't work... I am so disappointed, but I'll save them for another project...

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Fast Friday Quilt #3

Finally finished my third Fast Friday Quilt.

This is Challenge #32 ...

Color Concept: 3 Side-by-sides with an Opposite Accent

Composition Concept: Grids and/or Frames...

I'm definitely attracted to grids. I could have posted one of my SUDOKU Art Quilts (81- square grid) and be done with it, but wanted to try something new: Irregular Checkerboard Blocks from Sandi Cummings' book, Thinking Outside the Block. My colors are: Green, Blue-green, and Blue with an Orange accent.

This is what my quilt looked like after the original piecing. Planning the irregular checkerboard was more complicated than I thought it would be -- trying to get one set of colors (blue-green left side and bottom) leading to a darker set (blue), then to the orange rectangle in the upper right. Also, I definitely need more piecing practice. I didn't mind that the checkerboard was a bit "wonky" but the orange stripes were so crooked -- it drove me nuts. Had to cover up those stripes...

This is my finished piece -- 9"x 16". I'm so much happier with the added rectangles. Also adds more interest and dimension. Added hand stitching (for texture) to the machine quilting. Pillow-case binding -- improved from my last quilt. Left the bottom open and got a wonky corner (reason for adding buttons), so next time I'll try a slit in the back to turn the quilt inside out.

Close-up for a better look at my blue French knots (also have French knots on the orange flowers) and blue stem stitch.