I am finally starting to feel like I’m having more personal time to sew. Perhaps I’m being more efficient, or maybe I’m just not getting distracted by things that waste my time.
Whatever the reason, I am loving it. I was able to finish up my French Rosebuds quilt top this week and I’m very pleased with how it turned out. French Roses kits are available using these exact same fabrics. You can see my progress and read my previous post here.
French Rose Buds Quilt Top 36″ x 43.5″
French Rose Buds Pattern
I changed a few things from the original French Rosebuds pattern to make it a little more sassy.
First of all, I chose pastel Kona Solids for a fresh, modern look. I also widened the frames and borders.
The pattern calls for the frames around each block to be the same color as the roses. I thought that by switching up the colors, it looks a little more lively.
Finally, I added small 9-patch blocks in the border corners to give it a little more pizzaz. This actually made the borders easier to sew, too.
Whenever you make a quilt from a pattern or a kit, you can still change it up and make it your own!
During construction, I pressed all of my seams open.
My new favorite tool, a wooden seam roller came in handy for this task.
I rolled each seam first to open the seams.
Then I went back and pressed each seam with a hot dry iron from both the back and the front to keep them open and flat.
This nifty tool is really nothing more than a wooden wallpaper roller. I originally bought it for paper piecing but use it now for all of my “finger pressing.”
Now I am excited to baste this puppy and start quilting!
I’m thinking I want to stitch a small filler around the roses and then quilt the white sashing with pebbles – sort of mimicking a path or stone wall surrounding the roses.
Then I think I’ll free-motion quilt some sort of floral motif in the outer borders. When I took Angela Walter‘s FMQ class at QuiltCon, she showed us how she quilts her free-form feathers and flowers. So I’ll practice on some scraps first and see what I can come up with.
Angela Walters at QuiltCon
Angela Walters’ Flower Quilting
Now it’s back to work so I can earn a little more free time sewing this weekend!
Christa Quilts 
I’m about to begin a French Rose quilt. I made a sample rose block & tossed it into the washing machine to see how it would fray. The edges didn’t fray much. I tried a second time, tossing it in with towels on a regular heavy setting but it still isn’t fraying much. Is there a trick to getting that gorgeous fraying I see in photos?
It will fray the more you wash it and use it.
Turned out to be a great finish. Nice work!
I love the modifications you made to make this your own, and it was a fabulous pattern to start out with. Just lovely.
Beautiful little quilt…so fresh and full of fun!
I really love the color choices you made – the blue instead of purple makes this quilt look less baby and more springy. Your quilting ideas sound really great. I totally see the pebbled path with flower boxes. Can’t wait to check in later and see how the quilting turns out. Great Finish!
Love it, your changes are certainly enhancements!
It’s pretty and springy – FMQ will be lovely especially since it’ll be a little bit of QuiltCon sewn in.
How do you decide when to press seams open? It always seems confusing. Thanks
Judith – I have started pressing ALL of my seams open 🙂 It takes a little longer but everything lies so nice and flat when I do 🙂
I love this quilt, I even think it is nicer than the pattern . I haven’t started mine yet, I just keep looking at the pattern. You inspire me to get started on it. I will have to
put it at the head of the list. Looking forward to the quilting. It sounds like you have a good plan. Can’t wait to see it finished. Lovely job so far. diane
Sweet!
It’s so beautiful, and I agree with your improvements 100%! 🙂
This top turned out beautiful….
This is really cute. Can’t wait to see the quilting.
It’s very sweet. The quilting you are going to do sounds like the perfect detail : )
It’s all solids?
Yep – all Kona Solids. I love them!