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.
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.
Now it’s back to work so I can earn a little more free time sewing this weekend!