Feelings: Happiness

 It took me awhile, once again, to come up with an idea for this theme. One day, as I was pondering the theme, I thought "my feelings are a bit like a lava lamp - they ebb and flow throughout the day". That thought stuck with me as I was pondering what to do. Then my daughter gave me a piece of fabric for my birthday that reminded me of a lava lamp, which in turn, made me think of growing up in the 60s and 70s, which led me to think about my brother's red Beetle, to listening to 8-tracks in his Beetle on Sunday afternoons, and a favorite song, The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) written by Paul Simon, performed by Simon & Garfunkle. And that, my friends, is how this quilt emerged. 

See that crazy multi-colored print with the oranges, aquas, pinks, etc.? That's the print my daughter gave me. I went with my improv waves because they are so relaxing and fun, pulling in coordinating fabrics. But I'm getting ahead of myself. My first task was the bottom panel with the words "Feelin' Groovy". I found a font that looked a bit like the 60s and traced it onto Kona Silver fabric. I applied fusible fleece to the background and used different colored threads to add pick stitches around the lettering. 

I even added a button for the center of that funky little flower to dot the "i". To outline the letters I used fabric markers. 

The panel got a bit poofy from the dense stitching, so I had to ponder how I was going to anchor that to the rest of the quilt. More on that in a bit. 

For the improv waves, I pulled coordinating fabrics and just had fun. Then I stitched the wavy strip section to the word panel. I decided to use fusible fleece on the waves section, too, so I didn't have to deal with two different weights of batting. I quilted waves through the strips, attempting to add those lava lamp "blobs" that ooze up and down. I don't know that I was successful, but I enjoyed myself. 

To anchor the panel as best I could, I just did a quick stipple around the edge of the seed stitching. 

My backing and binding is another fun fabric in my stash. The colors seemed to tie in well with the waves. 

Feelin' Groovy reminds me of the feeling of happiness. When all is right with the world, and everything feels carefree. While that is hardly the case in our world today, at least my memories can take me back there! 

Wendy