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Express Your Love Goddess Wall Hanging Quilt

Express Your Love Goddess Art Quilt

Express Your Love Goddess Quilt - Original Design

Finished Size: 30 x 42 inches 

Leah Day's Goddess Quilt book  

Would you love to read the inspirational quilting stories behind all of Leah's goddess quilts?

In 2019 Leah published her artist memoir showcasing the creation of each quilt in the goddess series. This is a story of transformation and how each goddess quilt pushed Leah to become a better woman, wife, mother, and quilter.

This is the book quilters have been asking about for years!

Click Here to learn more about Leah Day's Goddess Quilts

Express Your Love goddess art quiltIn 2012 we hosted the first Free Motion Quilt Along and I enjoyed a wonderful year guiding quilters through several fun projects and many beautiful designs. By the end of the year I knew I wanted to continue quilting along, but with a new project that would be even more meaningful.

This is how Express Your Love was born. I began sketching the design that fall and had the final version ready by the new year. We began 2013 quilting the Express Your Love goddess quilt together. 

Looking for this quilt design? You can find Express Your Love as a printed fabric panel right here on Spoonflower.

The quilt pattern for Express Your Love is under construction. This page will be updated when a new pattern is available.

The unfortunate downside is this quilt along ended up being a disorganized chaotic mess. I'd start a new version of this quilt one week only to start a totally different quilt the next week.

At the time I was also quilting Duchess Reigns and I can remember feeling terribly split between the two projects. I wanted to quilt them both, but simply didn't have time.The wonderful thing about sharing this quilt was the ability to share and talk about things that are easy to keep silent about. I stitched words into this quilt to help me be a better person, both to myself and my family. I also challenged myself to try new techniques and teach them during the quilt along.

What resulted was a very challenging year, both emotionally and financially. I seemed to be working all the time, but getting nothing done and our business suffered greatly for it. I can remember feeling very tired and very frustrated, but I can also remember feeling stimulated and challenged as I tried new construction methods I'd never used with any other goddess quilt.

In the end, I just couldn't bring it together and left many versions of Express Your Love unfinished, folded in a drawer in my basement. Many quilters wrote in to ask for more videos, but I was ready to move on, in a completely different direction and with a rock solid focus and organization. We started the Building Blocks Quilt Along in 2014 and I pretty much shut the door on this project, the quilt along, and all the various unfinished quilts.

Recently I pulled out this embroidered version of Express Your Love and began working on it while James and I watch a TV show in the evening. Just that little bit of time was enough to start seeing progress.

Express Your Love goddess art quilt embroidery

Pretty soon I was staying up later to get a bit more stitching in and that progress expanded. Now I can look at this embroidery and see it's very close to being finished.

Along with stitching this design in embroidery floss and beads, I've been thinking about this project, this quilt, and how the quilt along went so wrong. It was entirely my fault of course - you can't be the host of a party and then fail to plan the event!

These days I look back on that time and feel grateful for what I've learned: how to organize and plan, how to budget my time and work efficiently, how to indulge in my own projects and experiments without the pressure of turning it into something bigger than it needs to be.

Leah Day Dream Goddess Daily Planner  

If you died tomorrow, what would you most regret not doing?

Do you have a dream achievement, a special project you long to focus on? Have you been putting off this dream for years?

This beautiful 3-month daily planner includes undated blank calendars so you can fill in the spaces to fit any month of the year.

Click Here to read more about Leah's Goddess Planner.

I plan to work through all the various versions of Express Your Love (and there are several!) and finish them all slowly, exactly like I'm finishing this tiny hand embroidered version. One stitch at a time with love in my heart.

I'm working on reorganizing the Express Your Love quilt along, but for now you can watch all the videos in their original crazy order in this playlist:

Also check out the original blog posts for this quilt along project. Click the links below to read more about each version of the Express Your Love Quilt:

1. How to Quilt Words on a Quilt 2. Echo Quilting Around Words  3. Echo Edge Stitching
4. Painting over Quilting 5. Quilting over Painting 6. Learn to Quilt McTavishing
7. Filling Small Spaces in a Quilt 8. Tiny Stippling: Free Motion Quilt Micro Zippling 9. Make Your Quilts Intense
10. Concentric Circles Quilting 11. Flock of Geese Free Motion Quilt Design 12. How to Dye a Wholecloth Quilt
13. Tiny Flame Stitch Machine Quilting Design 14. Quilting Hair on a Quilt 15. Thread Painting with Cat Hairball Filler Quilt design
16. Getting out of a Quilt Rut 17. Easy Free Motion: Zigzag Spiral 18. Learn to Quilt Wiggles in Free Motion
19. How to Rip out Quilt Mistakes 20. Free Motion Quilt Hot Spiral 21. Loopy Spirals in Free Motion
22. Beginner Trapplique 23. How to Pick Perfect Fabric Color 24. Learn to Quilt with the Alphabet
25. Beginner Trapplique 2 26. Machine Quilt Cyber Spiral 27. Easy Basic Spiral Quilting Design
28. Outline Quilting Tips 29. Quilting Motifs 30. Easy Jagged Scribbling Quilt Design
31. Ocean Current Quilt Design 32. Sun Inspired Free Motion Quilting 33. Machine Quilt Ribbons
34. Beginner Free Motion Quilting Cobblestones 35. How to Quilt a Fern 36. Quilt Puzzle Design
37. How to Quilt Lava Rocks 38. Easy Maze Free Motion Quilting 39. Universe Quilting Design
41. Piece a Log Cabin Block 42. Design a Log Cabin Background 43. How to Begin Foundation Piecing
44. How to Quilt Sawblades 45. Foundation Piecing Beginner tutorial 46. Happy Stitch Quilt Design
47. Scrappy Color Quilting 48. Learn to Quilt Pearl Feather 49. Foundation Piecing Triangles
50. How to Quilt a Missing Piece 51. Foundation Pieced Log Cabin 52. Paisley Bellybuttons Free Motion Design
53. Foundation Pieing Bargello Mosaic 54. How to Quilt Donuts 55. Double Foundation Piecing
56. Let's Quilt Cracked Maze 57. Foundation Pieced Braid 58. Free Motion Quilting Design Undertow
59. Turning Foundation pieced Edges 60. Connecting Appliques to Background 61. Noodle Feather Quilt Design
62. Wiggle Maze Quilt Design 63. More Paisley Free Motion Quilting 64. Free Motion Quilt a Lotus
65. Quilting Rocks 66. Free Motion Quilt Design Oblivion 67. Learn to Quilt Daisies
68. Fun Free Motion Quilting Paperclips 69. Quilting Stitches and Dots and Turns 70. How to Quilt Glass Art
71. More Feather Quilting in Free Motion 72. English paper piecing 73. English paper piecing edges
74. English Paper piecing Connecting Hexies 75. Quilt a Modern Weave 76. Wild Quilting Applique Textures
77. Let's Quilt a Daisy 78. More Maze Quilting 79. More Free Motion Feathers
80. Quilt a Tangle of Lights

 

Yep, this was a hot mess, but I learned a lot and I'm a much better quilting teacher for it! 

Click Here to find more pretty quilts to read about

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