Denise's Bloom Quilt

Denise made this very sweet "Bloom" quilt,

pattern by Vanessa Christensen of "VandCo",

for her daughter's birthday this spring.  Lucky girl!! 

When Denise messaged me to get on my quilting list back in February and shared a picture with me of this pattern, I was super excited for it to come and to quilt it.  I have been so inspired by the white backgrounds on other quilts I've seen machine quilters quilting, and so I was thrilled to quilt a quilt with so much negative/open space.  When she brought it and I saw the hours of work she pour into needle turning each petal, I knew I needed to enhance this quilt somehow to make those flowers pop and yet I wanted them to seem like they are floating.  You know when you see a flower floating in a pond or fountain, that's what this quilt reminds me of, love it! 

  I posted a picture of this quilt on Instagram, while it was on the quilting machine after I had just started quilting it and Vanessa from "V and Co." saw it and was, like me, gushing over the three ombre borders.  She shared a picture with her followers the next day when I had it finished.  Thanks, Vanessa! 
Its quite a compliment when the fabric and pattern designer love and compliment your work.
 

The pattern only calls for one border, but Denise needed to make it bigger to fit her daughters bed, perfect choice to add the three!  With the ombre fabric the color pink goes from an intense pink color to a faded lighter pink, and then back to the intense pink.  If you look at the pictures closely you can see that Denise didn't line up the ombre's, which I love!  It adds to effect of the 3 borders.  Each flower on this quilt is actually made using a ombre jelly roll designed by Vanessa.  So the petals of the flowers differ in hue and shade.  I wish you could all see this in person.  If Denise decides to enter it into the county fair this summer, hopefully those of you in Cache Valley Utah will get to see it.   

I used a white 30 tex Perma Core A&E thread, and a 8020 cotton/poly batting.

 

 love these dancing flowers!

 To make it fun for Denise's daughter I wanted to add lots of swirls, then the pebbles and occasional one petal feathers made there way in as well.  This quilting was completely free hand and so so fun to do.  I knew I wanted to add the back and forth figure 8 in the outside border, but I just stewed and stewed over what to do with the pink borders and the two white mini borders inside the pink ones.  So, I went with leaving the pink unquilted and doing a circle chain in the white borders.  It made the borders POP, just like the flowers.  With everything else being quilted so dense, those pink borders needed to be left alone.  And, I couldn't be more thrilled with the result.

  Love how the light picks up the texture in this picture.  LOVE it!

 Another view of those awesome borders!

 Its so fun for me to look back at quilts like these and be thrilled with how they turn out, and to think...WOW, I quilted that.  I've defiantly been blessed with a talent by our most loving Heavenly Father to get to do something I LOVE almost everyday, and to have the clients I have who let me "work my magic"!  Thanks so much Denise!

 

Happy sewing to you~!

- leisha