Sandra is my sewing sister, as most of you know, and lives in UK while I am a US resident. She recently designed a pattern for whole cloth or applique use and asked me to give it a try. As a whole cloth, the design has 4 different bouquets in each of four quarters to make a 40 x 40″ quilt. I am doing one quarter as a small appliqué project.
I decided this would be a good time to try some couching, using green variegated yarn as stems. The mode grunge dot background is from stash and all the flowers are made from my bits in my applique tub. A 2″ border of moda grunge metallic in purple was also in the stash and I will use the same purple for binding.
As I rummaged through my appliqué tub, I found a little bag of appliqué pieces (including some laser cut leaves) that remained from previous projects. I decided to use as many of these applique leftovers as possible in Sandra’s Bouquet
.
The couching was done on my domestic machine using my braiding foot (Bernina #21). First I did some practice runs. I like the way different stitches give the yarn stems a slightly different look.
The bouquet is wrapped in a delicate pale pink ribbon that I have had for over 20 years.
Thank you Sandra for your bouquet!
And finally, because I am going to give this to a grand daughter on her next birthday, a bluebird of happiness!
Happy quilting/sewing everyone!
Lennea
Handmade by Lennea 
One wonderful tutorial Lennea, I love how the little Blue bird sits there looking at wonder at his wonderful garden of delights. Was interesting to see you using the stems like that Lennea a great lesson and thanks so so much for the close up photos. Was interesting to see your applqiue take on Sandra’s beautiful painted whole cloth, so so much to see and learn from you both. I need another life time LOL Cheers Glenda
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