BELLA GARDEN - FNSI

My McKenna Ryan quilt - Bella Garden is a long term project and I am very happy to say, she is almost finished !!!

Thanks to Wendy of Sugarlane Designs,  I spent Friday night  getting the binding ready (there is so much of it!), now all I have to do it put it on.  I just couldn't wait to show you the photos, now that she is back from Mandy my great long-arm quilter friend.

It has taken me almost 2 years to stay on track and keep going, but its worth it now.

Just love the centre panel with those gorgeous flowers and sweet butterflies.

Mandy did a wonderful job of filling in the background with Ricky Doodles (thats what I call them??)  and swirls all around the border... Lovely

I love feathers so I asked to have some put in and look what she came up with.  (I've just noticed  I need to  embroider a little eye on my mouse..oops).

Check out the water fill quilting that goes all around the gorgeous blue water and sky.

My favorite part is the Wisteria, very time consuming to do but it came up a treat.








If you would like to see my progress making this quilt, check out my Bella Garden label on the side, to see how each block came into being  Or pop on over to the McKenna Ryan Group here to see other terrific McKenna Ryan projects

This one is going in the entry hall when its finished.  Its too nice to hide away in a cupboard so I have Mr H rearranging furniture so I can find a wall big enough to hang her.

BELLA GARDEN - BLOCK THREE

Its been a while since I have done any work on my Bella Garden Quilt, there's been so much else to keep me busy, but its back on now.

I've almost completed the applique features, just a little stitching to do and it will be complete.  Those dreaded wisteria flowers took forever but they were worth it.

I've decided to change my quilt from the original a little, and omit the bird pictures on the top and bottom.  I feel it would just be too big to do anything with so I will add a couple of borders and then think about the quilting.  Not really sure how to quilt this, the material is so vibrant it wont need very much at all.  If anyone has any suggestions or examples, please let me know.

If you have missed Block one its here and Block two here

Mr Frog

Lily flower

Finished Applique 

BELLA GARDEN - WISTERIA BLOCK

I have almost caught up with my Bella Garden's second block 'Wisteria'.  I thought that by the amount of work and time it took me to do the first block, I would fall way behind with all the others, but the second block came together much quicker.  I like to think it was because I knew what I was doing :)

Anyway here is the block so far......I can't do all the Wisteria flowers as some of them overhang onto the border pieces and I need to attach them before I can finish the applique.  I will have to wait until Block 6 before I can start to assembly the whole quilt and there will be more applique to finish then.

Woops, I may have spoken to soon, these wisteria flowers are driving me crazy, the large part of the flower was fine, but the smaller round petals are very difficult to attach, I have had to resort to my free motion foot and do a circular motion around the edge about 3 times.  It actually looks like fabric painting now.  I'll keep at it and you can see the result soon.

MCKENNA RYAN QUILT - BELLA GARDEN - BLOCK ONE - GARDEN PARTY

Santa has left me a beautiful BOM kit subscription to put together over the next few months.  It a McKenna Ryan Quilt called 'Bella Garden' and its gorgeous !!

 

Full Quilt Pattern

The kit comes complete with all the materials, patterns and instructions and I was very excited to receive the first one in the post.  After reading and re-reading the instructions, I  set about tracing, cutting and fusing onto the background material.  Thats easy, I thought.

BLOCK ONE



Some of the threads I purchaed to match the vibrant materials.

Then a girlfriend mentioned about the raw edge applique that I needed to do (blank look on my face) ...sure...no problems.  That was until I found out that every little bitty petal, flower bud, stem, butterfly wing, the list goes on, needed stitching and in different colours to boot !!  

Block One all fused and ready for sewing, oops one butterfly to add

How did I miss that instruction.  I thought that the fusing would be enough to hold everything together forever (how naive am I ??)

No point feeling sorry, I picked myself up off the floor and set to it.  I got into a rhythm and got my first leaf done, and as long as you dont look too close, its passable.  I have chosen to use the open-toe foot and a small stitch length,  rather than free-motion as I have more control this way. 

First flower stitched.....many more to go!

 

 

The best part of this whole exercise, is that I found people just like me who have started a McKenna Ryan Blog and now I'm part of the group.  We can all go through this life changing experience together and hopefully come through it with a heirloom masterpiece.

I'll keep you posted on each block but I'm not looking forward to the Wisteria in the second block, there must be at least 50 individual petals that will need applique! Phew thats a lot of eye-strain.