For May's challenge Aurifil asked us, what is your sewing super power?
For me, it is designing and sewing complex foundation paper pieced animal portraits! I love it, I love the challenge of trying to make them look as lifelike as possible but still simple enough to sew. For this month I decided to revisit an old pattern of mine; I originally designed this in 2021 as part of the UK's Festival of Quilts’ ‘Exhibition of Hope’. We all know what happened in 2020, and the phoenix rises from the ashes of what was there previously. It still feels very relevant now five years later. I originally said I wouldn't release this pattern, but that was because I was intimidated by the small size and the large number of the pieces. I have a lot more experience with designing now and with a few revisions from the original pattern I have released it for everyone to have their own Phoenix of Hope!
I finished my 15" block as a mini quilt. I heavily freemotion quilted the background with black thread before freemotion quilting flame accents on top of that and then also picked out some feather shapes in the body and gave my phoenix a colourful crest! I used 50wt thread throughout, including piecing, in colours 2625, 2024, 2692, 4030, 2240, 2260 and 2135.
Sadly this is my final Aurifil Artisan challenge. I haven't been chosen for another year but that's OK, I have other exciting things in the pipeline! I have loved every minute of this experience and will definitely be applying again in the future. There are so many talented artists out there that it is only fair that others get to have a go! And I can't wait to see what they come up with over the coming year :)
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