This is Block #1 of Kathleen’s wool applique quilt. As I have mentioned previously Kathleen chose “Bloomin Beauties” pattern from Kim Schaefer’s Flower Festival book for this project. So, let’s begin.
The background is a heavy black flannel and all the wool is hand dyed wool. Kathleen started with a patterned wool for the leaves layered over a solid green. The stem is a patterned wool and the flower background is a solid wool layered with a patterned wool. She has used size 5 perle cotton in various colour combinations. The leaves are bordered with a fly stitch. The flower is bordered with a chain stitch with the addition of seed beads at the top. The inner section of the flower is bordered with heavy chain and Palestrina stitch.
Her combination of colours is lovely. Kathleen almost always leave some area of her block without any stitching as seen with her stem.
I find the simplicity of these blocks very appealing. As there are so few elements it really allows the stitching to show up and THE THREADS! Naturally you could easily further embellish if you wished – more stitching, beads, buttons etc. I will be sharing more of Bloomin Beauties in upcoming posts.
If you are not familiar with these stitches a fantastic resource are Mary Corbet’s stitch videos at NeedleNThread.
Hope Kathleen has inspired you! Have a great weekend.
