I have recently felt like I have been in a creative rut. I have worked on a few projects here and there but I felt like I kept failing at my endeavors. I made some quilt blocks that ended up being horribly obnoxious, the pattern I have been working on ended up being a pain in the butt to explain (even though it is actually a super easy pattern, the concept itself ends up being very wordy), and I tried making one of those animal quilts from a drawing in my sketch book and it just bored me to death making it.
Then I stumbled across this bedspread from Anthropologie and instantly wanted to make a quilt inspired by it. It took me awhile to build up the confidence to try something like it, but once I decided on a plan there was no stopping me. I am using low volume prints containing only white, black and grey to create a background of large patchwork squares and then make applique flowers to go on top. Since I recently made a quilt using raw edge applique I thought It would be fun to try the freezer paper method so I don’t have to worry about seams coming unraveled.
The flowers are simple and will mostly come from my sketchbook although I am sure I will create some more specifically for this quilt. I first drew them up in illustrator and then printed template outlines to create the freezer paper templates from. My first flower – the pink flower – measures about 14″ but the grey background it sits on will not be used – it was a fabric I originally pulled before I decided to go in a different direction. The yellow flower is even larger measuring at about 18″.
I have to say the freezer paper method is quite simple and has given me great results so far. I have yet to decide if I will hand stitch these so you can’t see the stitches, or use a machine blanket stitch in a thread that blends or even a thread that contrasts the fabrics I am using – I am leaning towards the machine stitch for speed. What do you think?
Lorinda Davis says
These are so cute! I can’t wait to see how it all comes together. I think it’s awesome that you’re using flowers that you’ve sketched…. it makes it so much more personal! I love handstiching, but if you’re going to be doing a lot of these (and the inspiration photo looks like there’s a lot!), I would use the machine.
Elise Lea says
Thanks for the feedback Lorinda! I did decide to go with machine stitching but instead of trying to match every color of fabric I picked one thread color in a medium tone to try and blend (like a medium bright pink thread for all the pink fabrics and a medium blue for the all the blues, etc.) I think it should work wonderfully!