Oh Alice!

This morning it was my plan to prepare the flowers for the first block of the Secret Garden mystery BOM.

This process includes: tracing pattern onto freezer paper; cutting out freezer paper pieces, iron onto appropriate fabric; cut out fabric piece; brush starch onto seam allowance; fold around freezer paper and iron to set; remove freezer paper; glue baste turned under fabric pieces onto background.

And so... after this mammoth effort... I didn't like what I had done.

 Ack! The flower fabric was just too busy, and it wasn't clearly distinguished from the background fabric.

I felt a bit down for a while... because by the time I realised these fabrics were wrong, the three local shops I rang were already closed for the weekend, and the shop most likely  to have what I want re-opens Tuesday. *sigh*

I rang some quilty girlfriends, who were at a 10am-10pm quilting marathon (woah!), of course... and even though they were 3,000km away, it was lovely to hear about their projects, and hear their sympathy for the lost hours on the flowers this morning...

Rather than drown in puddles, I went off to do the grocery shopping, and afterwards just as the keto vegetarian lasagne was in the oven (now that cooking process is as detailed as the one I outlined above), it came to me that I might be able to try some fabrics from the Diamond Hill quilt stash. Ooh!

I am so grateful for the online quilting community. I posted the photo above onto Esther's BOM facebook page, and the comments were so encouraging. They loved the leaves, and could see the look I was going for.. and now... I have made this flower. Just one this time. Heh heh.



While I was glueing it down, it came to me that the leaves I've already used are very Alice in Wonderland... and I felt that these bright reds were like the white roses painted red in the story for the Queen of Hearts... now I am thinking of all the wacky plants and animals in that garden, and I am so excited to have Wonderland as my inspiration for this quilt! Who would have thought it would come to be while I was doing the first block? Ooh! That is a priceless discovery.

At least one of these flowers needs to be white, or partially painted red with the paint dripping. Perhaps some faces on the flowers too... eyes maybe...

And the thorns on the stems will be either red or cream in the fairy frost.

p.s. this is the Holy Tula fabric. Can you see where I cut the leaves out?