Farewell Gift Wallhangings

I have had the privilege of making going away quilts for several of a friend's foreign exchange students over the years. This year they had two shorter term students and she requested wallhangings!

This was what she offered up for the concept. That and wanting lots of room for their American friends to sign before they leave.

I found this state wallhanging online and liked the background idea for some interest yet able to be signed.

Hehe, here is a quick sketch of my plan.

I made lots and lots of cream and white hourglass blocks which meant lots of squaring up!

I bought a poster size frame for some maps to put in the boys room and they turned out to be perfect for laying out my rows.

I made my two identical backgrounds.

I printed out an outline of their countries and decided to make them the color of their flag.

When I tested them out I realized that the background was a bit too big and ended up removing two rows and two columns. That turned out to be a good thing. I quilted one on my regular machine with simple diagonal lines. I didn't get my layers particularly taut and it ended up being a bit puckered.  Then I decided to wash it and see how that turned out...HAHA. It was so lovely and wrinkly but would make for a difficult time adding signatures.  Well...

I used the extra rows and columns and had enough to build a third background. Yay...however somehow my first two were not identical and I had to further cut down part of them. Finally I had two matching tops!!

Onto the lettering! I thought about trying the method of embroidering over puff paints. A trial on some scrap fabric steered me in a different direction.

I printed the words off on cardstock. Then I added interfacing to my fabric and traced the words on the back. Next I cut them all out and after the wallhanging was quilted I zigzag appliqued the lettering to the whole thing.

Since my first round didn't go well I loaded them both on my longarm machine and did a simple loopty loops design. 

Here is a shot of the zigzag applique in progress 

I appliqued a heart on each country roughly where they live.

The last step was to hand stitch a line from Nebraska to their homes! I don't have a picture but I used a Husker fabric for the backing and added triangles in the corners for hanging.

I love how they turned out!

They have reached my friend and I am happy to say she too likes them! Hurray!! 

Alissa

Linking up with Alycia at QuiltyGirl and TGIFF!