The folks at Aurifil thread sent out a challenge to their Artisans for the month of October- Use five of thread colors/types in one project. I do love a good challenge, and also love a chance to sew for fun, so I eagerly accepted!

Actually, I’d had a project like this in the back of my mind for a while. I love the Spooky Silhouettes I created for my first book, Wise Craft: Turning Thrift Store Finds, Fabric Scraps, and Natural Objects into Stuff You Love. In the book, I have them as printable templates to hang in thrift store picture frames painted black, for Halloween.

 

 

I thought it would be fun to revisit them and maybe free motion stitch one of them. (Free motion stitch= drawing with thread at the sewing machine). After enlarging the lovely cat-eared lady to fill up an 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheet of paper, I printed her out and taped her to my wafer light box. From there, I traced the image onto a piece of Rifle Paper gold printed toile canvas I had in my stash (from a few seasons ago).

 

I used a Frixion pen to trace the silhouette, then free motion stitched over the silhouette outline several times at the machine in Black 50 wt cotton (which is what I use for all my patchwork and quilting).

My mind’s eye saw her silhouette filled with flowers, also free motion stitched. So I roughed in some flower and vine shapes with the Frixion pen, and began to stitch.

 

 

I used all the Aurifil orange shades I had, as well as some deep plums and burgundy.

 

 

 

 

Once I’d completely finished, I added some dimensional lace I brought home from the Mill End Store in Portland. Purchased on one of my visits to see my daughter at school.

 

 

And a Victorian Mourning necklace!

 

 

In the end I think I may have gone over the 5 color challenge, but I had so much fun stitching up this little mini quilt I hardly even realized it.