April Showers Brings May Flowers!!!!

This has been a project on my mind for a couple years now.  I finally have it finished on cloth!!!! The next one is already brewing in my mind, but I have a couple finished squares that need to be completed in their final forms...always something on my mind!

I will post this with tutorial pictures and descriptions as I went through the whole project.  Enjoy!

These are the fabrics I found recently and just fell in love with. Then I printed on to fabric some pictures to use, though I ended up not using them all.  The seahorse and flowers in the upper part of the picture were printed on silk several years ago, just waiting for a home.  Why a seahorse, well his colors looked great, he lives in water, and my passion is Under the Sea!

Here I am using the 5 sided "House" method taught by Judith Baker Montano. Crazy Quilt probably has as many ways to place fabric, and there is no wrong method. But after crazy quilting for 20 years, I like this method the best. I can balance my fabrics and not end up with big pieces next to small, or it helps to avoid a "strippy" look. It also has prevented the "holes" I would always seem to have, and have to hide with embellishments! It's all a matter of preferences.

With large background finished, I made a large raindrop for the middle. I marked where I would place it so I didn't embellished under it. The raindrop will get padded to give a 3D look.

Background piece with large basting stitches marking the raindrop.

 Raindrop ready for embellishing!

Finished embellishing.

The seahorse came out great! I used Barbara Seavey's lace to give some under sea look!

I put a "raindrop" in PowerPoint and then added some Bible quotes. Who hasn't sung the Rain, Rain Go Away as a kid?!!!

A couple more quotes, top right is from BJ Thomas song, "Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head". He has always been one of my favorite singers!

 Another Bible quote, from Genesis 9:16..."And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth."

Crazy Quilting is my passion, and has been for over 20 years. So I do feel I live the life I have imagined. I have God in my life, a wonderful supportive husband, and our health is great. What else is there?!

This quote is one of our favorites. We almost made the mistake of moving last year, and now feel that this quote shows us that God was keeping us here.  Oregon, where we were thinking of moving to, had the worst rainy winters in years!!! And, yes, that came to us as snow, the most we have seen in the 10 years we have been here! But we were safely settled in our home and yes, we are grateful!

The raindrop is attached, and I am crocheting a trim to go around it to set it apart from the background!

 You can see the plastic canvas under the finished piece...this will give it strength to keep it's shape when hung on the front door.

Here I have batting cut for both sides of the canvas.

 After sewing front to back, I tied through the canvas to attach to front. There's always enough embellishments on the front to hide the stitches to the front!

Tied in several places.

Sewing front to back, before tieing....while listening to Home Free, my favorites!!!

Here's the top...the trim is two different colors, couldn't decided which I liked best.  So I twisted together and attached with a loop over stitch.

 Middle of the whole piece!

 Bottom left corner...April Showers theme!

Bottom of whole piece!

 Our favorite quote!

 Finished piece...just in time to go on front door on April 1st!

Thanks for visiting. Hope you enjoyed your time here!!! Comments are greatly appreciated!

Happy Stitching.