Etno blog tour - welcome to my Tuesday!

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my stop on the Etno Blog tour!

 I am deeply honored and beyond excited to be a part of the tour and to celebrate this lovely new fabric collection by Pat Bravo.

I am a huge fan of Art Gallery Fabric, not only for gorgeous fabric designs and truly superb quality, but also for their support and patronage of so many young, creative designers and fun, creative presentations that are so inspiring! Umm... Did I mention I am a fan? :)

I hope you have been enjoying some amazing creativity and inspirations at the tour stops so far - you can find them all here on Pat Bravo's blog. Yesterday Sharon shared her gorgeous quilt on her blog - I just LOVE it!! And tomorrow - stay tuned for more Etno beauty from Nancy of Owen's Olivia .

ETNO - I love everything about it!! The inspiration behind it, the colors, designs... The way how they all harmonize together so beautifully and yet, every one can shine on its own. See, that was my main dilemma when dreaming up my project - do I use them all together or just a few? Ideas were flying for both, but for now here is the first one that I came up with - my Etno Garden ! This is a table runner and it measures 18" x 44",

I was really inspired by how wonderfully colors and patterns flow from one fabric to another and here is the palette I chose:

Aren't they just gorgeous? 

I know I wanted strips in all these colors, but also this gorgeous print kept asking for some flowers too...

So here is my Etno Garden story!
Some strips came first, on one side... (sorry not the best photo here! :(  )

Then on the other...

And here was the basic design on my wall: (another "action shot" taken on the fly and not the best...)

Now some serious chain-piecing was in order:

Look at those eyes!! :)

Once the piecing was done, I was ready for some flowers for my  Etno Garden! Do you like applique? I do! I remembered some sketch-style roses I drew one time and now the question was if I can find them...ha, I did! (big success if you would see my sewing room sometimes...)

Some fusible, some cutting and roses were blooming! 

Top all done and ready to quilt!!

Here are lovely Aurifil (50wt) colors I chose for quilting. (numbers are 2630 (charcoal), 1148 (teal), 2445 (rose) and 5010 (gold))

I had fun texturing the roses, doodling some leaves and vines and some free-hand straight lines in the color strips. here are few details:

I actually like how back looks too!

So here is my Etno Garden my friends! I do love it - what do you think?? :)

True to its name, I found some ethnic props from my heritage - traditional plum-brandy bottle and modern time pottery from my Motherland - little country on the Balkans, Serbia. I really love how they play with Etno fabric!! :) 

As much as I love outdoor photos, unfortunately this past few weeks in Buffalo NY were not photo-shoot friendly... I managed finally to catch some no-precipitation (yes, snow too!!) time quick, so here is the best I can do:

My Etno Garden in my, still sleeping, rose garden! (can't wait for my roses to bloom - promise to take another photo then!!)

OK, so here is my guilty confession my friends: my ambition was to have one (or few) pillows done too, but sadly my "fabulous" idea did not work very well... (I am NOT showing you a pile of mangled strips on my cutting table!!) - but I am not giving up!! Found the solution and even few more and better ideas and those pillow will come to the blog soon - so stay tuned!!

In the meantime - lets all get inspired on the rest of this fabulous Etno Blog Tour! I can't wait to see what else is coming (and I keep going back to all the blogs posted so far, since they are just so gorgeous and inspiring!). For constant stream of inspiration, make sure you follow Pat Bravo and Art Gallery Fabrics on all social media, they really keep my creativity flowing!

I hope we stay in touch - tell me what you think and show me your lovely creations ( Instagram and FB page links on top right).

Wishing you lovely spring and many stitches,

Marija