Fleur - Paint by Numbers Inspired Quilt

Left side is a paint by numbers of a hummingbird over flowers. One the right is an improvised quilt based on the hummingbird picture.

Fluer

16” x 20”

A sweet mini inspired by that hummingbird paint by numbers. It is clear I am much better at quilts than paint by numbers!


In June of 2021 my kids bought me the paint by numbers for a new Morning Make activity. Each day I patiently worked my way through the numbers. It was the right kind of meditative play for me for Morning Make, but when I finished halfway through the month I declined the offer to start a new one. Just not my thing. Then a friend suggested I make a quilt inspired by the painting.

Once finished, it, like many other quilt tops of mine, sat. And sat. A few weeks ago I was in the mood to play with some free motion quilting. Having a mini on hand was fortuitous. It’s an easy baste and in 20 minutes I was stitching. Once I completed the leaves to the flowers (in a perfect olive green from Aurifil) I decided the hand stitch in the centers of the flowers and leave the rest unquilted. Simple, yet graphic.

Details of the quilting. Free motion leaves around improv pieced flowers with seed stitch yellow centers

So now they are both done. Will they hang together? Probably not. For one, I did a pretty crap job on the painting. And two, we have a no quilts on the wall rule. That’s okay, I’ll just bring her out every now and then when I need a little pick me up.