Hi everyone! Today is my day to participate in the Where Flowers Bloom blog hop hosted by Carla at Creatin’ in the Sticks! I’ve enjoyed seeing everyone’s beautiful projects and cheery flowers so far (and a few other creatures included as well!)
For my project, I chose a pattern from Annie’s Craft Store from the e-book A Year of Flower Blocks (affiliate). While perusing the file, I came across this lovely block for the month of June. Since these blocks are 15 inches square, I decided to make a mini quilt that can be hung or used as a table mat.
I love roses! Roses and peonies are my very favorite flowers, along with dahlias, gladiolas, magnolias, etc., etc. Well, you get the picture – I really love ALL flowers! I just can’t grow them! LOL I did not get my mother and grandmother’s green thumb! Though I do have some lovely gladiolas growing right now. Heck, I even turned a yellow rose bush red! I’m not sure exactly how that happened, but after about 6-8 years of blooming the most beautiful yellow roses, the next year it turned a deep beautiful red!! I’m NOT kidding! Had they turned purple, I would have loved them even more!! ??
So with my favorite color being purple, I set out to make my rose wreath in those colors. The first task I had was to either buy a premade doily or make one. Whoa Nellie!! Doilies are not the easiest to find, so I decided to try my hand at making one. I learned a lot about doilies! Here is the beginning of the doily (from the back side). All those little dots are where you are supposed to punch 1/8 inch holes!
So, I took this with me and, while sitting in car line waiting to pick up the grands, started punching holes. BIG MISTAKE! I realized after I punched all those holes that I had to zig zag around EACH ONE! Oh my! Some of you may remember I bought a new Pfaff Creative Icon back in March and I remembered one of the reasons I fell in love with this machine. So I decided to look through the special stitches and found a lovely eyelet pattern. I placed some stabilizer behind those holes was able to enlarge the eyelet so that it pretty much covered them up and decided not to punch out the middle because it was larger than any punch I had! I think it turned out pretty well. I also had to zig-zag around the scallops of the doily as well. I did that by placing some water soluble stabilizer (WSS) behind the scallops and zig-zagging, then using a damp cloth washed away the WSS from the edges.
Here is a close up of the eyelets. While, not perfect, they were a lot easier than the three holes!! All in all, I was pretty pleased with how the doily turned out – and I might consider making another one – after all they say hindsight is 20/20!!! ?
After the doily was made, I stitched together the base of the quilt – some more tiny little blocks and strips!
This is the center block that finishes at 3-1/2 inches square! It’s pinned to the center of the doily so the rose stems can be tucked under before I stitched it down permanently!
Next I centered the doily on the base of the quilt, stitched it down using a machine stitch with the look of a hand stitch, and started adding the roses. I had built the roses on an applique sheet using my handy new Cutterpillar light box. I love using Lite Steam-a-Seam 2 for my applique because I can move an applique around until I decide on it’s permanent home!
Here is a close up of the center!
And voila – the finished project (along with a couple of my “helpers!”) Chloe was thinking she surely wished that chair was bigger so she could fit in it and love on that little quilt! And Yogi was just being the perfect little gentleman! (He could probably fit in the chair if he wanted to be there – but he’s old and cantankerous at times!!)
But WAIT – THERE’s MORE!
How would you like to win your very own copy of A Year of Flower Blocks courtesy of Annie’s Craft Store? Just fill complete the Rafflecopter form by clicking HERE! A winner will be chosen at random via Rafflecopter on Monday June 18th!
I do hope you will visit the rest of the bloggers in this beautiful blooming garden! Here is the schedule!
Monday, June 11th
MooseStash Quilting | In The Boon Docks | Seams To Be Sew | Lily Patch Quilts
Days Filled With Joy | Elizabeth Coughlin Designs | Seacoast Quilter
Tuesday, June 12th
Life in the Scrapatch | Words & Stitches | Kwilty Pleasures | Patchwork Breeze
AllThingzSewn | VroomansQuilts | Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats | Why Knot Kwilt
Wednesday, June 13th
Just Let Me Quilt | Hazel’s Daughter | Nettie Sews and Lucky Quilts | ShirleyC
Cynthia’s Creating Ark | Songbird Designs | Creativeblonde | Patchouli Moon Studio
Thursday, June 14th
Sew Incredibly Crazy | selina quilts | PamelaQuilts | Ms P Designs USA
sunshinequilting | Melva Love Scraps | Quilty Pleasures
Friday, June 15th
Den syende himmel | QuiltFabrication | Blessings From Our Nest
DesertSky Quilting | Just Because Quilts | Quarter Inch Crafter
Creatin’ in the Sticks
Thanks so much for stopping by – I hope you have enjoyed my project! Thank you, Carla, for hosting this fun and beautiful blog hop.
I’ll be linking up next week with:
Connie at Freemotion by the River
Dione at The Clever Chameleon for the Chameleon’s Colour Party
Lorna at the Wednesday Let’s Bee Sewcial
Kelly at Needle and Thread Thursday
Sarah at Confessions of a Scrap Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
Until next time…
What a beauty! I love your mini quilt!
Love this! I love the purple, it is perfect for this mini-quilt!
What a beautiful table topper and that is so neat that you were able to make your own doily! The decorative stitch on your new machine is also neat!
Very pretty project and your model assistant is cute too!
This little wall hanging is just about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! Imagine, making your own doily. I mean, really, the thought would never occur to me. It’s truly beautiful!
That little quilt is really darling, I love it.
Beautiful project, and cute dogs!
That is super pretty! Love those applique buds – well done!
Love your purple rose! Lot’s of work–you must be very patient with those eyelets!!
Oh, the purple! I am a purple lover too and the deep shade you chose is perfect! Your work is amazing!
Very nice. It’s something I’d like to try.
I LOVE this mat! The purple roses are beautiful! Your work is very well done. Thanks for sharing this beautiful piece.
Gorgeous roses and decorative stitching.
That’s a really cute design and you have impressed me with making your own doily. Well done.
Absolutely gorgeous!!! You must have a lot of patience.
I forgot, Sweet pooches too.
This is gorgeous, Beautiful everything. I would like to try and make one, but I don’t think I have it in me.
Of course if I should win the book I would have to give it a try.
Wowzers, Brenda, this is gorgeous. Love your eyelet. Thank you for joining in on the Where Flowers Bloom Blog Hop. Great post and inspiration. Your last post was great with flowers too. *wink*
😉
Wow! What a wonderful little quilt. Thank you for sharing.
A lovely idea for a mini quilt
WOW, that is a stunning piece and the amount of work involved is inspiring. It won’t inspire me to do it but I can admire it from afar. Thanks so much for sharing the steps involved in achieving this beauty. Love the models too.
Certainly turned out to be quite the ambitious project! And oh, so pretty!
Very very nice work and ty for sharing….
Wow! What a gorgeous project! I am so impressed you chose to make your own doily. You did such a fantastic job. Enjoyed your tutorial on how you made this. Stunning!
I love the way you used the doily as the background for the applique in your mini quilt! Your mini quilt is stunning in part to your artistic abilities. Of course, the fact that I love applique, flowers and purple would have nothing to do with my opinion that this quilt is fabulous and I would love to win your give away! LOL. Thank you so much for sharing and for the great give away also. Have a fantastic day!
HUGE WoW on the eyelet, that is beautiful. You are definitely braver than I am. However, this is a stunning project, it’s just gorgeous, I love every little technique in this project. Beautiful fabrics make this perfect.
At first glance it’s gorgeous…but after reading your post…holy smokes! It’s spectacular. I can’t believe you stitched around all those little eyelets! It really is in the details some times.
Pat yourself on the back. This one is fabulous!!!!!
This is beautiful! Love all the wonderful little details you added. Thank for sharing in the hop … 🙂 Pat
It’s absolutely gorgeous! Love the puppy too!
Your table mat is beautiful. I love the tiny eyelets and scalloped edge. I would love to try a project like this. Thanks for sharing.
Great project. Like the other commenters, I am amazed you made your own lace. Well done. The finished quilt is soft and pretty and I’m glad your adorable helpers did not hop on it.
Thanks for the chance to win.
This is really just gorgeous! And so different and unique. I would never have thought of designing my own doily.
You are much braver than I. I would never attempt to make a doily like that. I would have bought some lace, I think you can still find lace and attached it to a circle. I say that and I am wanting to learn to tat, At one time I did know how to needle tat and I can’t find my needles or my booklet. I want to learn to shuttle tat. I cannot get the hang of it. My grandmother and her sister used to tat. My great aunt was going to teach me to tat before she went blind and I was young and could not get the hang of it at all. And the size of your pieced block is tiny. Your project is beautiful. Thanks for sharing – beautiful inspiration.
That is gorgeous! I doubt I would ever make a doily though, lol!
That looks so lovely! And I love purple!
The eyelet fabric made your quilt look vintage and much softer. So pretty!
What a beautiful mini quilt. Thank you for taking us through the steps to make it. You must be really proud.