Roses and Old Lace......late 2007

This is the sort of quilt project that personally excites me. I like making normal quilts, but I love playing with 3 dimensional flowers and working out how to do things. I'm really "making it up as I go along", and I enjoy doing embroidered work or beading to embellish projects.

It took me awhile to realize that this is what I like.....until I kept doing it!I was excited about this project from start to finish. I wanted to make a vase of 3-D roses on a lace tablecloth and intended to buy an oval frame for it. I started out with a piece of lace and a black background. I appliqued the vase and decided to stuff it slightly to make it look more real.

As I worked on the roses, I ended up trying 3 different styles and just looked at them as 3 types of roses :-) I decided it needed some other color, so I added the blue flowers on long stems. I made 3-D leaves and managed to zigzag them to the project. The roses were the last thing to put on so I would not mess them up or get the thread wrapped around them constantly.

I had fun with the little blue circles by adding some beads, and then I used feather-stitching to look like ferns.

I hand quilted the background and was ready for a frame. I did a little looking around and then decided...."why not quilt that too???" A new challenge! I used the same stuff you make the postcards from.....a stiff interfacing......and had Mike draft an oval for me. I cut that out and had some stretchy golden fabric that I covered it with putting cording on the inner and outer edges. I had no idea what I was doing! It is a bit crooked in places, but I don't tend to get upset about things like that when I am experimenting anyway. I used my zipper foot to sew close to the cording and then stitched more lines to give the frame a textured look. Then I made gold roses the same way I had made the colored ones and put them at the top and bottom (didn't line them up straight!) I decided it didn't look quite right so I used fabric paint to "antique" my frame.

I had this piece of black fabric with roses on it that I decided looked like wallpaper.......so.....I made a small "wall" that is reversible to hang my finished picture on! I still need to quilt the "wall", but can't decided whether to do it on the machine or by hand. The fun part is over, so I've never gotten around to doing either.

The reversed side of the "wall" is green....of course! I like both and can't decide which I prefer.

Of course now that I did all this work, I can't find anywhere in my house to hang it!

I really enjoy fun stuff like this :-)

I chose the name as a parody of the name of my favorite old movie...."Arsenic and Old Lace".

I actually posted details of how I made this in my other blog last year in November before anyone was reading it except my family. It shows some pictures of the quilt in the process of being made.

Q is for Quilt.... from start to finish!