Aurifil Artisan Challenge - September 2023

Our September 2023 Aurifil Artisan Challenge was to use a particular thread collection that we received in our 2023-2024 Welcome Box. I was the lucky recipient of the Kimberbell Vintage Flora Collection. Isn’t it gorgeous! The collection contains 7 small spools of Aurifil 50 weight thread in 2105,6723, 2530, 2845,1125, 5019, and 2615.

I have been having so much fun with free motion raw edge applique that I decided to use that technique for this month’s challenge. And what better to use than fabric from Kimberbell’s Vintage Flora Collection! Look at these prints and the colors! Gorgeous!

I decided to make an 18” pillow, so I used this beautiful White Swirl Floral print in the Vintage Flora collection for the front of my pillow and the Dark Blue Floral Print for the envelope back cover. I wanted a simple quilted look on the pillow, but just a little more than cross hatch quilting. I found this creative design in the book “Walk” by Jacquie Gering (she also wrote “Walk 2.0” too!) It was so easy! Just simply use a hera marker to mark your cross hatch lines and quilt the straight lines with your walking foot. Then here comes the magic, using a wavy stitch, just simply quilt over your straight lines! All with your machine walking foot! Viola! A beautiful quilting design that looks much more difficult than it was! I used the Aurifil Thread in Aluminium (#2615) for my quilting lines.

After quilting my pillow front, I am ready for my applique flowers! I drew these folk inspired flowers on my iPad and then transferred them to fusible web. I've been experimenting with various brands, but this time I used Steam-a-Seam Lite. It has a slightly sticky adhesive on both sides, so it was so nice to be able to position my flowers before actually fusing them! I used the Dark Blue Floral Print and Green Sparkle from Kimberbell’s Vintage Flora Collection for my flowers. I’m still so in love with these colors!

After fusing, the fun begins! I used the various threads in the collection to free motion stitch around all of the applique pieces. So much fun and so adorable!

I finished my pillow off with binding in the Green Sparkle print and the Aurifil Military Green (#5019) matching thread. What do you think? Do you like free motion applique? It gives the piece a much more modern look that using a blanket stitch or applique stitch around the edges. I had so much fun with this project and using this beautiful Kimberbell Vintage Flora Thread Collection from Aurifil! I hope you enjoyed it too!

My Favorite Tools & Notions for this project:

Baby Lock Sewing Machine (I sew on a Baby Lock Jazz II and a Ballad)

Thread-I use Aurifil 50 wt for all of my piecing

Mechanical pencil/fabric marking pen, i.e. Frixon Pens or Sewline Erasable Pens

Scissors or rotary cutter

Cutting mat – I like using a rotating cutting mat

Straight pins - I like ultra-fine Magic Pins or Clover extra-fine patchwork pins

Clover Wonder Clips

Seam ripper

Oliso Mini-Project Iron

Wool pressing mat

Creative Grids 6.5" Quilting Ruler

Creative Grids Perfect 5” Ruler

Heat & Bond Lite

Karen Kay Buckley Applique Scissors

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