Flower Shop Pattern

Shop to Shop -- Series A consists of four themed quilts using polka dot fabrics for the inner border and binding. Colors used will be brown, green, red, and yellow. Each one will be embellished with a variety of buttons; and wording decorating the outer border.

 



  

You'll be able to decide whether you wish to use the wording provided in the pattern, or make changes such as: using different words or none at all. Or, you may wish to use appliques instead of buttons for some of the blocks.


The center section with the first border (polka dot fabric) is 15 3/8" wide x 12" high.  Add the white border and it will be approximately 22" wide x 18 1/2" high.

The second pattern: FLOWER SHOP is now available at my Craftsy store.

 

 

MORE ABOUT THIS PATTERN

 

Check out the following blog posts that journal this pattern's progress:

 

Flowers and Vases

Basket of Flowers

Elza's Flowers

 

 

Check back in two weeks, for the next pattern in this series. Want to join in the fun and win a free pattern, this opportunity will be coming later this fall. More details coming in October.

 

.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elza's Flowers

My final layout chosen, appliques fused in place, and zigzag stitching done; it was time to add the  lettering to the borders.

This time I tried all capital letters on the bottom border; however, I didn't think it fit or looked balanced. So, then I redid the letters I needed; and replaced most of them with lower case letters.
 

FIRST LAYOUT WITH CAPITAL LETTERS

 

CHANGING TO LOWER CASE LETTERS 

 

This change was to my liking. The last addition to make was adding some fancy buttons, once the quilt was finished.

To finish, all I needed to add was the backing, as I had added the batting to the top layer to stitch through both layers while adding the appliques. I found this worked quite well. I also like matching the binding fabric to something used in the quilt blocks; in this case, the inside border, as I wanted to use more of the polka dot fabric. 

 

Here is the finished quilt project. I am also working on a pattern, which I plan to add to my store in the coming month.  

FLOWER SHOP QUILT

 

There are two more quilts in this series that will be showcased in September and October. Hope you've enjoyed these projects, so far. 

As we once again turn another page on the calendar, into another season; hope your plans include a few exciting quilting projects. Cheers.

.....

 



 

Basket of Flowers

To begin, I had chosen four vases to fit onto the blocks, and now I needed to add more images to fill the rest. Thinking of what a real flower shop displays and has for sale, I wanted to add lots of flowers.

Having drawn and prepared several applique pieces, I began to try them out. The first layout shows the vases placed on the green blocks and a few flowers lain out on the brown blocks.

VASES ON GREEN BLOCKS

One goal in mind was to have vases filled with stemmed flowers that were ready for creating flower arrangements. So, how to go about this….

With these tall, black vases, I tried several layouts; here are two of them. Even though I liked the idea, I just wasn’t impressed with using black. I found it too harsh. So, then what….

ADDED FLOWERS IN TALL VASES #1

 

ADDED FLOWERS IN TALL VASES #2

Having introduced baskets in the above layouts, I figured that was a nice addition to the vases. My next query; was how to arrange them properly.  

After a lot of adjusting and figuring out what to use for my stemmed flowers, I was ready for the final options.

This layout was working well, and after deciding that I’d place each group into rows, this is what I thought would work the best. Here’s a sneak peek at part of the final layout:

FINAL LAYOUT IN PROGRESS

Don’t get me wrong, every slight adjustment did look good; sometimes better and sometimes another great alternative. What I did need to do was make a final decision and fuse each block’s images in place. As at some point, we must move on to the next stage of the process. 

Check back next week, when I’ll show you the completed quilt.

…..

 

 

Flowers and Vases

The theme for my second quilt in this series was: flowers. For a peek behind the scenes, here is how it began.

Having decided I would use the green polka dot fabric, I chose a green and a brown for the inner blocks, from my fabric stash. I would use the same measurements for the blocks and borders as for the shoes quilt. Those that needed resizing were cut into four-inch blocks. Some were already the size I required.

ADDING POLKA DOT BORDER

 

Applique selection began with choosing several styles of urns and vases; then figuring out what else to add before working on the arrangement of these twelve designs. Even though this can take much time, I enjoy this part of the process. Sometimes the hard part is trying to make the final decision on design placement. There are many options, and only one is needed.

QUILT TOP WITH SIX APPLQUES

 

The Block Appliques

On small blocks such as these, the best method to add the appliques is to first sew all the blocks together to make a larger surface area before applying the applique pieces.

Then, if you notice some designs extend beyond the borders of their own block and also onto the polka dot border. This requires the first border to be added before adding the appliques.

 

When to Add the Borders and Batting

Also when a piece has a lot of applique work added, it tends to shrink in some areas, this can make the borders harder to keep straight.

So this time, I thought I’d add the batting to the quilt top I’d created. I found this helped keep the piece straight. The one thing I found happening, was the batting tended to shed onto the quilt top. So after I had finished stitching on the appliques, I used masking tape to de-fuzz the quilt top.

Because I had only added the polka dot border, I still needed to add the white border before adding the backing fabric. This was not difficult to do. I just figured next time; I should just add both borders on this size quilt, if I wanted to add the batting piece, so it could be stitched through while doing the applique stitching.

ADDING WHITE BORDER

Check back next time -- to see some of the layouts that I tried in the process of figuring out what I liked best.

…..