Happy Hippie Chick

This quilt is a result of me signing up for a block exchange called Block Lottery at Quilter's Haven in Menominee MI, My month was June and I selected four fabrics-the pink overall peace sign print, the pink tone on tone, an orange with pink dot and the cute daisy print with the black background. I knew I wanted to create a hippie chick/flower child image positioned in the middle and, after seeing the yurk quilts at the Wisconsin Quilt Museum Booth at the IQF Quilt Show in Chicago last June, I liked the long banner layout. I love star blocks so I lucked out and with my own block (upper right) I had enough star blocks for the corners and placed the other blocks in a pleasing matter. The flower block in the upper center is particularly awesome and I had to put it at the top!!

The hippie girl was inspired by an image from one of my daily calendars. I used all batiks except for the blouse fabric which is one of the four original fabrics. I used the hot pink and orange from the block in the "Hippie chick" letters. This is a good example of why I choose batiks for raw edged fused applique since the commercial cottons, especially the orange print, unravels too much. I wanted to repeat and reuse these fabrics but I am disappointed in the unraveling. I used a font common in the hippie era and hand drew the lettering then fused them to the background once the hippie girl was fused in place.

The fringe on the purse is batik cut into strips and tucked under the fused purse applique and then it hangs freely for a 3D touch!!

I used variegated thread and some fun decorative stiches on my sewing machine to duplicate trim on the bottom of the blue jeans and the blouse-this was fun and not the norm for a quilt to use these specialty stitches.

I hand beaded a necklace and two bracelets and glued a rhinestone choker for my hippie chicks "love beads!" I added a few felt peace sign buttons in the background and decided to stop with the embellishments. I considered adding more flower buttons but liked it the way it was and it had enough activity from the fabric prints.

 

This is a close up of the fabrics and the two decorative stitches I used in areas of the blocks I saw appropriate. I quilted this quilt with hot pink rayon  Madeira 40 weight thread which is lovely and does not break in the machine. I will use it as often as a can and it comes in lots of colors.