'Pieced'

I managed to make this whole project with scraps I had on hand, and getting some shared fabrics from a friend in my sewing class.  I call this item 'Pieced' for a few reasons.  I feel a little at peace having the pieces of this project together and not floating around my house.  This required a new technique called Paper Piecing and this is also earned it's name because it's a lot like life. 

Life a million things that happen, that make you frustrated, that don't work, and yet they do.  It's because one thing can make your life come to pieces (or so it seems), yet the great people of your life help you to hold it together like the threads here.  That we aren't sure why things happen, but it's another piece of our puzzle in life and it fits in or we try to hard to make it fit, that we manage to get that item to work.  To me, this project is ALL of those things in life, represented in fabric.

Front side

My husband looked at it, and said "in the top I see a sun, then the water, a boardwalk with a field and playground on the side of it.  It's a park on a nice day!".  I thought this was a great interpretation of my project too, that he pulled based on my colors and where I put them.  I thought it was fun and it inspired the machine quilting patterns that I used to finish it.  Regardless, this is a wall hanging that I will enjoy for many years :)

The backside of the paper piecing

Paper piecing required me to draw the pattern our on paper, but in the mirror of what I wanted it to be.  I then would sew the fabric onto the paper and remove the paper after.  It was rather interesting to work this way and see the project complete itself.

Once all the sections were made, I had to sew them all together onto the muslin that will act as my base.  Once I had everything where I wanted it, I had to add the pretty lines of fabric that divides each section from another.  That required me to cut my fabric on the bias (with the stretch) and pres it into a little fold of fabric that I could then sew into my project.

Yay the paper piecing is ready to go!

I decided to do the quilting on the fabric in invisible thread, only because I didn't want to take away from the fabric itself.  However, up close in person, you can see the pattern I sewed into each section is different, and represents what my husband thought each section was in relation to the park scene.  It certainly has added some great texture!  For the border, I decided to go with a plain brown and a fun metallic green thread to have some fun.  I tried out a sewing technique that is suppose to look like bamboo growing in nature. I think it is too fun and totally me!

ready to be cut and layered

I can't wait to get something that I can hang this up with, so I can enjoy this project :D  I absolutely love this and I think it carries so many meanings.  It tells a story for sure, but what do you see in it?