Thread Painted Poppy Pillow
When I first saw the gorgeous Handcrafted Patchwork fabrics by Alison Glass I was blown away. I love how these patterns lend themselves more to quilting since the designs are closer together.

 Of course I wanted to use the fabrics as the base for a thread painting but what? Then I thought of my poppy design that I drew a few years ago.

 Since poppies are found in grassy fields, I pulled the fabrics with mostly greens for the background. I chose to piece a herringbone pattern that would be something different and allow for various fabrics to be showcased (pieced with Aurifil 50 wt).

I wanted to make sure my poppies stood out from the busy background so I decided to thread paint them bright red and magenta/purple with Aurifil 50 wt. I recolored my design to give the petals more of an ombré effect (a technique I mastered in the Tula Pink owl). I thread painted the black outlines first and then came back and applied the colors. 

Once the poppies were complete Mom told me they looked strange floating in mid air so after polling Instagram, I added grass!

 I actually like how the grass turned out. I like how it appears more as a shadow effect with a few different shades of green.

 I didn’t want to make another mini quilt so I ventured out and this was my first attempt at a thread painted pillow. So I decided not to use the Peltex Double Sided Fusible that I typically use to stabilize the thread painting for fear it would make the pillow too stiff, instead I used a couple layers of fusible batting and SF101. Using the batting however made the thread painting pucker slightly so I knew whatever quilting I chose in the background needed to be heavy enough to quilt out the puckers. I wanted to accentuate the handcrafted fabrics not take away from them so I tried quilting with Aurifil Monofilament thread in smoke (on top and regular Aurifil 50 wt in bobbin). I quilted each herringbone section differently and quilted around the fabric designs to make them pop! I absolutely love the way the front of the pillow came out and I actually think I like the quilting better than the thread painting!! Lol

For the back I used Olive Essex Linen with a pieced strip using leftover handcrafted scraps from the front. I wanted to play around with free motion quilt designs so I graffiti quilted the back testing out patterns. I practiced my feathers/ feather variations, pebbles, checkered, and swirls etc. 

I enjoyed the graffiti quilting and definitely want to do more in the future! I quilting the back with Aurifil Monofilament thread in smoke. The thread blends in perfectly with olive Essex, but I had known the quilting would have turned out so well I would have chosen a thread that stood out. (Oh well, there is always next time)

The pillow came out beautifully! I am very pleased with the result and I will be making more thread painted pillows soon!

Happy Quilting!
Xx Casey