La Vie en Rose Journal Quilt

Another month brings with it another word for the journal quilt project I'm doing with the Contemporary Quilt Group. The group set the size for the challenge (6 x 12"), and the choice of whether to go horizontal or vertical was up to us. As I had already decided to use words as my own theme I went for horizontal. My word for March is La Vie en Rose. The weather conditions sadly don't reflect this at the moment as we are suffering gale force winds and lots of rain, with snow also forecasted for later on.

So it's quite good to be able to seek refuge into a rose-tinted world. Usually La Vie en Rose is translated into English as: "Seeing life through rose-tinted spectacles". A bit cumbersome and not at all romantic sounding, in my opinion though, unlike the French version! "In the pink" is also a suggestion. My own interpretation leans to: feeling like you are enveloped in rose petals" and that's the way I went with this journal quilt. The most famous interpretation of the words was of course in the song by Edith Piaf. You might want to listen to it as you watch these pictures.

I used a wide variety of rose themed fabrics and raw edge appliqué done by hand,  to make the background which I then hand stitched using running stitch as you can see quite clearly in the detailed pictures shown. The next step was to cut the letters from another rose fabric using the Brother Scan'nCut machine and machine appliqué them on. The fabrics have to be bondawebbed in order to use the machine so that helps with the appliqué! Little red size 15 seed beads were sewn onto the letters and size 11 ones around the binding.

I like how the letters sort of merge with the background and you have to pay attention in order to read the text. I found some yummy rose beads in my stash and they were sewn on as the finishing touch.