Say It With Flowers - Completed

This pretty quilt, Say it with Flowers, was this year's mystery button club quilt, designed by Lynette Anderson Designs. I'd ordered the patterns and a fabric pack from Coast and Country Crafts and Quilts and each month received a pattern, complete with full size tracable stitchery design, full size traceable applique templates and a cute wooden button. The quilt had been pieced together and spent a few weeks on my sewing table while I deliberated over how to go about quilting it. I wanted to keep the quilting simple and eventually decided to quilt straight rows in the background blocks half an inch apart. I didn't want the quilting to detract from the pretty applique and hand embroidery, so I used a fine Aurifil 50wt thread in a neutral colour to blend in with the colour of the background fabric on top, and used a dark grey to blend in with the backing fabric in the bobbin...

...a simple crosshatch design was quilted in the 1" sashing squares and I've quilted "in the ditch" of the outer borders. Once the quilting was completed, a narrow single fold binding was added, this was machined to the front of the quilt, with mitred corners. The binding was folded over to the back of the quilt and hand stitched to secure, using ladder stitch....

...once the quilting and binding was completed, the blocks were embellished with the beautiful hand painted wooden buttons that had been supplied with each pattern...

...I'd prepared a hand embroidered quilt label a few weeks ago, and this was hand appliqued to the centre back of the quilt. Using a strip of left over backing fabric, I made a quilt sleeve. This was hand sitched to the top of the quilt. A narrow rod can be passed through the sleeve to enable it to hang on display...​

...and here's the finished quilt, ready to display in my sewing studio. I'd ordered a new quilt hanger online from The Cotton Patch that I thought was much more appropriate for this quilt as it's decorated with lots of flowers! This quilt was such a delight to stitch, and each month I really looked forward to receiving the next pattern. Now this one is finished, I can titdy my sewing table and get ready for making a start on another mystery quilt!