Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Spring Flowers Popping Up


The book Twelve by Twelvee showed a version of this technique. As usual I don't leave well enough alone, I had to put my own twist on it. As soon as I saw the idea of cutting through a couple of layers of fabric and turning the corners back to look like a discovery or, in this case, flowers coming through the grass, I had to try it. Below are the layers of fabric, without another pink because I decided I didn't want the green back [same fabric as the front] showing in the square. So this little quiltie [it's 8x8 inches is really five layers of fabric, the top four having been sewn together in squares and then clipped through and lightly ironed open -- enough so what shows in each case is a variety of the pink-yellow-blue and green.
Frankly I think it is a good abstraction of flowers popping up in the grass. I was recently given the ribbon that says "happy spring" and decided to add a strip o it to the top and to make hanging loops with it as well.

This was fun, although harder to open out than I expected -- I needed a third hand to accomplish the job efficiently but was quite unable to grow one on the spur of the moment when needed. I have an idea for making another, only three layers, I think. I learned that I'd have preferred the end results if the green top fabric were uniformly the same shade on the back and front which it's not. It's interesting to me to cut through some layers and not do reverse applique but leave them raw edge. I have a little fear that the person to whom I am supposed to send this piece will not understand what I've done and will find it very weird indeed as a quilt.

3 comments :

Anonymous said...

In pella once a year there's a tulip festival.
that's what this reminds me of!

June Calender said...

Thanks, Superhero -- i'm glad it looks like something and not just a torn up bunch of fabric.

Ladydy5 aka: Diane Yates said...

Just great looking. I love this kind of quilting as you already know. I think I will try this now.