Designing a Quilt

I needed to design a quilt depicting the 2018 Piecemakers of Idaho Quilt Show Theme:  Garden of Quilts

I began by clearing off my design wall, and pulling out all the gardening type fabrics I could find in my stash.  I decide right away that I wanted to use this sun flower fat quarter someone had given me.  It is my focal point piece of background.  This looks a bit messy, but you can decide what you want to remove.    I like the three colors on the yellow background, so the pieces that look funky with those bits, I remove and see what is left.
1)drag it all out 2) weed out
   3)imagine 4) add something else

I decided to add a bold one-inch separating border to help the lighter parts stand out.  I decided to create some 'quilt flowers', and I want to use ribbon as stems to help the flowers be more three-dimensional.  I did not have enough of any one light- colored floral fabric to go clear around as a border, so I used three different ones.  5) experiment  6) audition

Then my friend T made me think about this tulip design I had seen in a quilt at Sisters.  I made the tulip blocks bigger than I meant to, but it gave me more of a border to add more details to.  My friend N donated the hexi flower centers.  It began to remind me of designing a counted cross stitch!

7) add more details

8) final preview before quilting

I pinned the 'quilt flowers' on, so I could remove them for the actual quilting of the quilt.   After I quilted it and bound it, I sewed on the 'quilt flowers' and the hexi centers of the flowers.  I pulled it all together by using the orange as a frame in the binding.  Here is the 9) final product.

I really like the final product!