Monday, September 6, 2010

The Flowers of my Labor

This Labor Day Weekend...I got distracted by a quilt project.  Hard to imagine isn't it?

I had been collecting green/pink batiks for a quilt for my niece Hillary.  I had envisioned an English Pieced hexagon quilt.  Then I found this pattern by American Jane.  Which was originally done with a Jelly Roll...but I felt obliged to fuss with the colors so I would get pink and black flowers with green leaves.

Success was largely due to the fact that Stitch & Snip in Garden Valley had 3 perfect pinks.  Harley Dude couldn't figure out why I was so excited to take a ride with him on a hot Saturday.
The pattern is easy, but kind of fussy because of color placement, and also all the edges that end up being on the bias.   To make things difficult, I also enlarged the quilt by making the top row 4 flowers across instead of 3.  However, I only bought as much black background fabric as was stated on the pattern.   There are some creative substitutions along the edges.

Here's where I need your help.  The original pattern had circle flower centers on what are the black flowers in my version.  Here are my options: 1) add pink round applique centers to the black flowers  2)  add round centers to both the pink and black flowers 3)  leave it alone  4) add hexagon shaped centers.

3 comments:

Nadine said...

beautiful. lovely colors.

Lynn Koeppen said...

Your Harley Dude must be great to stop at all those quilt shops!


Love the quilt. I wonder why it is that WE (self included here) always HAVE to change a pattern? LOL

Marina said...

I have to admit, I didn't even notice the black flowers till you mentioned them. I just saw them as background. Having a pink centre of some sort would make them more obvious to unobservant people like me! And then maybe the pink ones would look naked without a centre too ...

I don't know, I have trouble visualising it. Why don't you cut some shapes from scraps -- circles or hexies -- and just lay them on top to see what looks better?

Good luck!