Flower quilt

I've finished two more blocks for the Flower Quilt.  That's eight completed.  They are small, just 6" square, so I'll probably need 64 blocks to make it a decent size.  It's a fun project because every time I learn how to do a new flower, it becomes a new block.  The flower always sits on a green centre patch, and the rest of the block is shades of the colour of the flower.

This flower was made by gathering up a wired ribbon on a smocking machine.  

This block was inspired by two things:  I found a faux ultrasuede jacket in a lovely shade of eggplant.  It had a long zipper and two different kinds of gimp trim that matched exactly.  Cathy K. showed me how to make a zipper flower.    

The stems are in a raised stem stitch.  The curves came from  a heart-shaped piece of plastic canvas.   For  raised stem stitch the horizontal stitches need to be measured and marked very accurately, the plastic canvas holes worked perfectly.

You can see the other blocks on Flickr - see my side bar on the right or click here.  I didn't realize that I haven't blogged about this project before.  My inspiration came from Alison Aller's workshop at last Spring's Adventure in Connecticut.  In her class we made flowers and leaves and drooled over her most beautiful flower quilt.