Little Flower Quilt - Part 1

Our Little Flowers girls club has created a quilt(s) to donate to the Spring Festival at the Cathedral for the last three years. Each year's quilt is different, but includes the same flower squares. I was in on the first year, skipped last year, and am now again involved in helping to complete the quilts this year. The girls help by picking and cutting fabric for the flower squares. Moms supervise; do fine cutting and tracing on flower patterns; iron; cut alternate squares and borders; machine quilt and finish the quilt by binding. This year, the club is creating two baby sized quilts.

I offered to do the piecing, bordering, quilting & binding for this year. I'm so thrilled with how the first turned out. The girls choose such interesting fabrics and each flower reflects the personality of the designer.

Here is the first quilt...

Normally, I cheat and don't iron all my seams. I did this time to make it crisp.

This border fabric (the yellow with blue star flowers and blue dots) is from my Grandmother, Julia, who died when I was 8yo. I always enjoyed looking through her fabric and notions as a young girl. When she died, my mom inherited her fabric and notion stash. Eventually some made its way into my home and I have had so much fun incorporating some of her notions and fabrics into clothing for my daughter. I am glad to see the fabric used in this way, too.

Here is the second quilt top...

Each quilt has 10 flower squares. We were 5 short after each girl made her square, so a few made a second flower square. The flowers are ironed on and then stitched about 1/2 inch in from the edge. The edges are snipped - as if you were clipping seams for a curved edge - to create a ragged look when washed. This technique makes it really easy for the girls and they don't have to be as precise. It's very 'forgiving' in its final look.

These are a couple close ups. You can even see the clipped edges of the flower in the lower picture.

This is Angelina's flower.

The next step is to add 100% cotton batting and a backing. The quilt is then machine quilted and the edges are bound with fabric binding. Pictures to follow in Part 2.