Slow Stitching - floral squares for a pink and green quilt

I worked on this slow stitching project over the holiday season.  I have been collecting pink and green fabrics - some florals - for making a quilt for our spare bed.  After checking out my collection I realized that I had some warm tones and some cooler tones which might not work so well together.  I want to include some of my Mom's embroider into the quilt so I needed warm tones.  I set those aside and then dug into my stash for more warm florals, pinks and greens.  I was in need of a new slow stitch project so I decided to embellish some of the squares in my quilt with some slow stitched flowers.  I cut 6.5" squares out of a very light green fabric and then trimmed out rough circles about 4" round from a pink fabric.  I did tea dye the fabric to tone it down just a bit and make it overall a little warmer.  Worked really well!!!  After getting my 23 flowers ready I trimmed 1" circles from a golden yellow fabric to create the flower centers.  I pinned them to the squares and the machine stitched the flowers to the squares.  Makes it easier when you are stitching to keep the layers together and flat.  I will be covering the machine stitching with hand stitching.  

Below you can see my first one!!  I used 2 ply embroidery thread in a coordinating pink and added a long row of chain stitches that ran from the outside to just under the edge of the yellow center.  I did add a light pencil mark to keep me on track.  After I finished the flower I decided to add some leaves which I drew with pencil and then embroidered with stem stitch.  I used Derwent Inktense watercolours to colour in the leaves.  These watercolours become permanent on fabric once they are heat set!!  What a wonderful tool to accent and embellish hand stitching.  As you can see from the photos this involves raw edge applique which I think will give the quilt a really home spun look which is just what I wanted!!!  

The quilt will be for a queen sized bed and will be put together with a QAYG technique with 12" squares which will also leave some raw edges which will echo the raw edges on the floral squares.  It will take a while to get it done but for now I will work on the hand stitching on these squares.  

Therese