Quilt The Life Into It - Wholecloth Quilt

I made another practice quilt for the wholecloth challenge with Renee @quiltsnfeathers - and I surprised Renee herself with it, for her birthday! This is one of our catchphrases, along with Yvonne @quiltingjetgirl; we all love dense quilting and the LIFE it brings to a quilt. So, we've been cataloging our quilting quests on the hashtag #quiltthelifeintoit.

I made the majority of this little quilt before I made my first wholecloth Hamilton quote quilt, so I consider myself much improved since. However, this quilt made me fall in love with tiny, tiny quilting and changing thread colors. It's textured but subtle until you look closer.

I added two of my characteristic appliqued orange peels so that it was crystal clear to Renee that I had made it! :) So I guess, in a way, it's not completely a wholecloth quilt. Oh well. I quilted some favorite motifs around them, including pebbles of all sizes and ribbons (which I'll be teaching this coming weekend in Beginner Free Motion Quilting with the Colonial Quilters of Bethlehem, PA!).

It's quilted all in 50 weight Aurifil thread; sometimes I quilted over motifs so they stuck out more. I used 2600 (dove gray) for the letters, plus 2024 (white), 2850 (green), 2540 (medium purple), 2805 (blue green), and finally 2715 (light blue) for the word "life."

This was the first time I tried actually quilting orange peels. They came out much better in the Hamilton quilt! The more you practice, the better you get. No one is perfect. Remember that especially when you free motion quilt!

I also just made this teeny quilt for my husband to commemorate our 4th wedding anniversary. It's a silly play on words using these beautiful lyrics from the musical Hamilton (written by Lin Manuel-Miranda). The story goes that I sang the song to him ("That Would Be Enough") and in response, he said, "I ketchup being your husband," to which I burst out laughing. And yes, those are our cake toppers from the wedding. We love cats (though we don't yet have one). :) I also love writing on quilts apparently!

I'll write up a post soon about the 40 and 28 weight threads that I've been playing with (thanks to Aurifil), one MORE practice wholecloth quilt that's almost done (sneak peeks are on my IG account), and an update about the large wholecloth project. These quilts have been my most fun experiments since I went orange peel crazy back in 2014. I don't really see them coming to an end; I've even started a list of lyrics and quotes I'd like to memorialize in quilt form.

What words would YOU like to quilt to life in a wholecloth quilt?

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday, Needle and Thread Thursday, TGIFF, Crazy Mom Quilts.