Every summer we have to take farewell from some colleagues who have to leave Prague after being four years in charge and who have to take the post in another part of the world. This summer we have to say goodbye to a very nice colleague, whom we will miss very badly. Since begin of the year I bothered my head about a gift for him. No matter what I did, the inspiration just didn´t come, until he expressed the wish to take a balloon flight. In no time, a collective voucher was organised by our enterprising colleague Moni, but we felt, it was somehow… only a paper. We needed to add something nice, something tangible.
And that's when I remembered, there must have been a quilt fabric panel with vintage illustrations of various vehicles and also hot air balloons in my fabric stash. The very evening the balloons were found.
We did a combat meeting with Moni and decided,
a binder cover would be the right thing.
First I had to sew a background for the two nice balloons. I had a packet of 10 inch fabric squares from my beloved Jinny Beyer in the right colour scheme, from greens to blues and greys, which would create a feeling of green landscape, sky and clouds.
As the Czech landscape is mostly
hilly, I decided for free-cut curves.
I needed a thorough help of my iron and it was clear, that the quilting must be quite dense.
The outcome was quite nice.
The two balloons were fused to dark blue linen and appliquéd on the background. I used free motion quilting and two shades of thread.
No matter how often I measure and try on the cover, I´m always very nervous, if anything would be accurate enough. Fortunately, it worked out this time.
Dear Franz, I wish you from all my heart only happy flights!
+++
Michaela
