New Year Blessings Wall Hanging

I ended 2023 making the New Year Blessings Mini Quilt by The Weekend Quilter.  The mini quilt shows the symbol for the Chinese word Fu. This is the most popular and auspicious word used during the Lunar New Year celebration. It means happiness, blessing, and good fortune. I think we could use that this year.

I knew I wanted to make a wall hanging for my entry way that was bigger than the 20" finished size of the mini quilt. When I first planned this project, I went to Spoonflower and found fabrics  to use to add around the mini quilt. Here you can see the pieces up on my design wall as I worked on my final design.

When planning my wall hanging, I wanted to use a color palette that was very heavy in blues and greens with pops of red. This was because originally I was going to wake a double sided wall hanging and the other side was going to be my Christmas wall hanging. I ended up finishing my Christmas wall hanging so I could hang it this year and didn't have time to may my Lunar New Year wall hanging then. One element I wanted in one of my fabrics was a depiction of each of the Chinese Zodiac characters. The print I chose is shown below and I selected it for it's simplicity and the bright red on white. This is Chinese Zodiac #4 print by Susiprint. 

I also wanted prints that showed the celebration of the Lunar New Year and was drawn to designs of lanterns and couldn't resist the red origami paper cranes. Here you see Symbols for Chinese Holidays Fabric byannapogulyaeva_art (lanterns) and Cranes origami, scales, waves, sea, ocean, abstract geometric japanese asian pettern aqua blue turquoise red Fabric byekaterinap (Origami cranes). 

Here you see vintage vase, Chinoiserie Ginger jars & Foo dogs, blue and white. Fabric bymagentarosedesigns (Dark Blue Chinoiserie) and chinese lanterns - blue Fabric bya_spacecat (lanterns).

A few of the designs I picked were of a larger scale and I cut them into 10.5" squares to keep more of the design intact. Here you see chinoiserie with beauty symbol - emerald Fabric bydesigned_by_debby. I was drawn to this design for the beautiful emerald green color. 

This one is New Year Lion Dance Chinoiserie Fabric bysusan_polston. Right below it you can see asian china chinese new year oriental children toddlers lanterns lion dance kanji spring good luck charms lotus water lily lilies traditional flowers Fabric byraveneve. It was also a large scale print and I selected it for the depiction of the Lion Dance. 

I quilted by New Year Blessings Wall Hanging on my longarm and used the Paper Lanterns pantograph from Urban Elementz. It was the perfect pantograph for this project. This is one of the many free pantographs that is available and I plan to use it again when I finish the quilt for our Guest Suite. 

I hung the wall hanging on New Years Day (according to the Gregorian Calendar). Many Chinese household keep the word "Fu" up in their home all year long. I'm just early getting mine up this year.  

I am so happy with  how my wall hanging came out. I plan to put it out each year for the Lunar New Year. My plan is to have wall hangings for many holidays and seasons that I can hang here. I think my next one to make will be for Easter.

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