Hello Friends! I've been working on a secret project over the last little while and I'm pleased that it's finished and now to be able to share it.

Oh Romeo mini quilt by Anorina Morris

Introducing my new mini quilt, which I've called 'Oh Romeo' which is my March project for Island Batik.

Earlier this year, Island Batik ambassadors were sent an Aurifil Colour Builders to create their projects. The Aurifil colour builder sets which we received were all based on places in Italy. I received the Verona set which included 3 large spools of cotton 50wt.

Now thinking about Verona... I honestly didn't know much about it other than "Romeo & Juliet" was set in Verona, so I did what everyone does when they want to find something out... I googled. Verona looks like an absolutely stunning city with beautiful old buildings and some stunning vistas.

In my mind, I knew that I wanted to create something inspired by Romeo & Juliet and decided on Juliet's balcony. Back in high school, we studied this Shakespearean play and even all these years later, I still remember having to learn and recite sections of the play

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? 

Deny thy father and refuse thy name. 

Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love

And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

To make my mini quilt, I found the image that I wanted to create, resized it to fit an A4 size sheet of paper and then printed it. I then used a sharpie to outline the shapes which I wanted to transfer on to my fabric.

For the background, I used an Island Batik solid in white. Island Batik fabric is so lovely, soft and with a fine tight weave which made it perfect for this faux applique (with colour pencil) technique.

Using a mechanical pencil, I traced out the basic design to my fabric.

I layered a piece of batting behind the fabric and used the Aurifil threads to draw the outlines of my design. I used all three colours in the set but mainly the darker brown colour. I then added some greens from my own Aurifil stash to outline the greenery on the left.

The next step was to use my colouring pencils (I use Derwent Artist pencils) to colour in the design. The more colour pencil I added, the more vibrant the final colour on the fabric would look. 

After I had enough colour on my design (honestly, I had to stop myself as I wanted to keep colouring the fabric) I brushed textile medium over the top which made the coloured pencil appear like a watercolour. It's such a fun effect.

I pinned the whole thing to a board while it was drying (24 hours), trimmed the mini quilt and added a white binding.

The finished mini quilt size is 10" x 12".

I absolutely loved creating this project, even if it had me completely out of my comfort zone.

All of the Island Batik ambassadors will be creating projects through March with their Aurifil Color Builders, so go ahead and see what they've created.

Thanks to Island Batik, Schmetz Needles and Aurifil for supplying the materials I used to create my "Oh Romeo" mini quilt.