Flowers by Mail

Sometimes it's surprising where we get our inspiration. For me it can come from anywhere, but this time, I saw a greeting card that was especially appealing and so I copied it. I've done this before from napkins, wrapping paper, or even designs on buildings. I named my quilt, "Flowers by Mail" and you'll see why in a little while. Since I made it, I was informed by a Flickr friend, that the image was really from a stamp from the Stampin Up company called, "Send a Celebration". Here is my rendition done on paper the same size as my quilt will be:

After I drew the image, I traced it onto my fabric lightly, with pencil.

Since the greeting card was done in watercolors, I really wanted to duplicate that look, and remembered that I had recently read of a method of coloring with crayons on fabric and setting the wax with an iron to obtain a watery look. First though, I knew I had to iron a piece of freezer paper to the back of my fabric for stability so the material didn't bunch as I was coloring.

I honestly felt like a little kid again and it was probably the most fun of the whole process!

After I was done coloring and I did make my middles a bit darker for shadowing, and even used a light gray on the envelope, I removed the freezer paper, and got a piece of white muslin to put over the quilt top so that I didn't get wax all over my iron when I was setting the colors. There was a bit of a trick to that since I remembered reading that you needed to smell the wax to know when it was done. Don't iron it too much or you will scorch it.

After that, I wanted the flowers and envelope to stand out a bit from my background quilting so I decided to use trapunto. (Another new technique for me.) I cut a piece of 100% thin cotton batting bigger than my image and put the quilt top on top of it, then pinned it around the image with flat head long pins. Then, in order not to catch any unnecessary extra batting in my initial stitching, I turned it over and cut on the outside of my pins so that everything would be smooth.
Then, I used white thread in the top and bobbin and free motion stitched around each flower, heart and envelope.
And when was done with that, I turned it over and cut as close as possible around all the stitching. Note the child's scissors with blunt tip just for safety. I sure didn't want to cut into my top fabric at this stage.
Then, I sandwiched as usual, using my favorite 505 spray adhesive. I have no picture of that, I'm afraid. Next, I wanted to stitch around each flower, heart and envelope with black, so again I did something I've never done.......I used #12 DMC perle cotton. I knew that the thickness would be perfect to make my flowers pop. Only there was one problem.......first I had to thread a bobbin with the perle cotton since I have no big thread holder. It worked perfectly! I used a fine black thread in the bobbin (on the bottom). I left all my threads hanging as I was sewing each flower, and was careful not to get them in a different flower's stitching because they were thicker than I had thought. And when I was done stitching, I buried them by bringing them to the rear and burying them in the batting.

On to the background quilting which I did in my newfound swirls! Oh, so pretty! Then, I trimmed it, bound it with a solid matching green, and put some buttons and colonial knots on for whimsey and wa-la:

I hope this has been helpful. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask and I will answer them in the comment section so you all can see.