I am really pleased with how my Baby French Roses quilt is turning out. All I have left to finish is the binding. If I can knock that out this week, I can enter into my guild’s annual quilt show next week. 🙂
It took me awhile to figure out how I wanted to quilt it. You can read about some of my previous FMQ auditions here.
I knew I wanted to quilt small pebbles surrounding the roses, and larger circles in the sashing, so that’s where I began. I quilted a concentric circle around each flower to give it more texture while allowing the raw edges to show. You can see the difference that the quilting in the yellow rose makes compared to the un-quilted pink one. It really defines it!
It was a big stretch for me to quilt all of those circles free-hand with no marking or measuring. I eyeballed it the whole way. In fact, none of the quilting was marked, it was all free-form, a very big step for me!
I had a hard time coming up with an idea for the frames around the flowers until I settled on simple straight lines. I used the edge of my walking foot as a guide and quilted two straight rows around each block. One quilted, the frames had sort of a wood-grain texture, reminding me of planter boxes that the roses could grow in.
I then repeated the straight line quilting in the inner borders to unify the design.
Finally I added a sort of floral motif for the borders that roughly matched the quilting in the petals. I used Glide thread in the top and bobbin for most of the quilting and switched out thread colors to match the fabrics.
It took me pages and pages of practice drawing with pen and paper until I got the feel for how to form wobbly concentric rose petals continuously.
I’ve been keeping track of how long it takes me to machine quilt to get an idea of the complexity. It took me 13.5 hours to quilt this over a 3 day time-span.
After it’s trimmed and bound I’ll wash the quilt few times (with color catcher sheets) to fray up the edges, and then she’s good to go!
French Roses kits are available in my store for a limited time. You can see my progress and read my previous post here.
Christa Quilts 
Wow…that is amazing…the quilting!!! Visiting from Let’s Get Acquainted. Have a great day.
Beautiful quilt and gorgeous quilting! I love the 3D roses!
it’s turning out beautifully! I think you’ve chosen the right pattern for quilting on every section. I specially like the roses on the outer border. What a pretty quilt!
This is beautiful! ❤ the quilting … 🙂 Pat
Beautiful quilting.
Wonderful quilting Christa! And thanks for linking to Applique Thursday.
It’s turned out so beautiful! I saw it in the beginning stages. Picking out the quilting can be challenging with so many choices, but I think your choices are all great!!
Your choice of quilting is so perfect and you did a great job. This quilt is adorable!!
So beautiful! An amazing work of art!
Just beautiful! You do such lovely work.
That’s adorable! I really like the 3D flowers and your FMQ is fabulous.
Wow wow wow. The design, the colors, and the quilting are all wonderful!
It’s gorgeous. I’ve also spent many hours on the first couple quilts I’ve FMQ’d, but I really think the extra detail is worth it!
Oh this is just stunning! Love everything about it.
I love those three dimensional roses!
Beautiful quilting – it really elevates this quilt!!
Absolutely beautiful. I agree the straight lines on the frames an border really sets off the roses well.
I love your quilting! What a great design!
I love how this came out. I have been quilting a few quilts on my machine and it’s wonderful to see how you quilted yours. Please show us a picture of it when it’s washed. I want to see the detail. 3bakergirlsgo@gmail.com
Oh, my, that’s gorgeous! PLEEZE finish it and enter it in the Quilt Show. Would that I could be there this year like last year! didn’t we have a ball! Mama
Christa it is so beautiful! I’m amazed at the quilting! Very impressive and such a perfect quilting pattern 🙂
Oh Christa, your quilting is gorgeous! I especially love the roses in the borders.
it’s wonderfu, hurry up and get that binding on
Ii think your quilt is gorgeous! I love how you have explained the quilting, it suits it perfect. I have made a large French Roses quilt and just love it.
Fantastic quilting. Congratulations.
Even though the border flower quilting must have taken a lot of the 13.5 hour of quilting you did it is so worth that time and so was the many thoughts you put into deciding how to quilt it. It is such a sweet quilt! Thanks for sharing the process.
I can’t believe how much the quilting changed the look of the quilt! It’s always been fabulous & now it’s even more amazing! Love it.
This turmed out sew pretty and the quilting choises are perfect. Great job.
What an absolutely beautifully crafted quilt………you have motivated me to work that rose pattern that I bought a bit ago and is sitting waiting to be done.
It’s absolutely gorgeous!
This is beautiful. Love how your quilting brings out the roses.
Beautiful!