June 12x12 June is Bustin Out All Over

Done!!!! After all these months of struggling with this one, I finally figured out how to finish it, and here it is. I loved the photos and the concept but the methodology just took forever to jell, until I realized that "less is more." I simplified what I was trying to do and it looks much better and provides the effect I wanted.

Every June 1 I go around singing the old song "June is Bustin' Out All Over" and so naturally that was my theme for this June 12 x 12. I was so lucky last spring to get the photo of these two beautiful paint horses running through lower Beaver Canyon. The horse photo and prairie wildflower and June sky vignettes were printed onto prepared cotton sheets and fused onto the already machine quilted background quilt with Steam a Seam 2. The quilting design is hexagons separated with small triangles that I discovered from one of the hexagon quilt patterns in my collection. The hexagon photos are superimposed onto this pattern.

I am so thankful to Joe for getting my machine fixed today so that I was able to finish the invisible thread zig zag stitching around the fused hexagons.

I fused the hexagon shaped labels and some of the lyrics to the song onto the back of the quilt. Please click on the photo to enlarge it so you can read the fun lyrics. (For some reason the font I used for the label had quotation marks that look almost like the letter i.) I printed the label onto a June Taylor Quick Fuse sheet, and had a problem with the first one jamming up my printer because of the heavy,very shiny, fusible material on the back of the cotton. I then got a brain storm to choose the "glossy brochure" option for the type of paper used, and the second one ran right through and printed fine. I chose this heavy duty fusible because I wouldn't be able to stitch around them without messing up the front of the quilt.

Yesterday was one of those "perfect Fall days" and I celebrated it by visiting the Royal Gorge Quilt Council's Fall Show and the Canon City campus of Pueblo Community College. Stay tuned to Toad Haven Annex for some interesting and lovely quilts I was able to photograph. I'm missing Houston but at least I enjoyed seeing the local quilts.