DIVIDED BLOOMS QUILT 🌸

The Divided Blooms Quilt is one of my favorite quilts.  The pattern is by Carolyn Murfitt of Freebird Quilting in Australia.  Carolyn is a longarm quilter so she designed this pattern with lots of negative space in it so that there is lots of room to do free motion quilting.  

I hand appliquéd all of the petals and then pieced the quilt together.  

While I did all of the appliqué I binge watched all nine seasons of How I Met Your Mother on Amazon.  Then I put it on the longarm to quilt. All in all it took me almost three months to make this. 

When I started to quilt I found that I couldn't free motion quilt any more.  All of my muscle memory was gone.  I had just had brain surgery where they removed a tumor from my head and something must have messed with my brain.  Everything looked liked the first time I had ever tried to quilt.  I sat down and cried.  Especially since I had saved this quilt to do until now when I would be a more accomplished quilter because I wanted it to be perfect for my niece. 

Finally, I just decided that I had learned it once and I could learn it again, so I went out and bought yards of cheap fabric and practiced. 

I finally put the quilt back on and went ahead.

I used Quilter's Dream Wool Batting so that when I quilted in the ditch around the petals they would pop out.

I used Isacord 40 weight thread.  #02922 Muslin on the top and Glide #38201 Steel Blue in the bobbin.  I used a Schmetz Topstitch 90/14 needle.  

I cut the borders larger than the pattern required.  I cut them at 3.5 inches which left a 3" border after stitching.  This gave me room to FMQ my signature leaves around the border.  I did the top and bottom border and then took the quilt off the frame and turned it ninety degrees so that I could do the side borders.

I got this quilt done the day before we left for up north.  My sister and her husband were celebrating their 50'th Wedding Anniversary and this quilt was for their daughter.  

Remember to pick up a needle and thread and stitch some love into your world❣️

My Master Quilt Holder at work.