Stretching

Yes, I am stretching out of my comfort zone.  I am used to creating straight line quilts such as Irish chains, trip around the world, and log cabins.  But I have been wanting to take my quilting to another level and so I created this blog to aid with this process.

I liked the string tulip quilt featured on the cover of "Georgia Quilts: Piecing Together a History" by Anita Zaleski Weinraub.  I have never created a string quilt nor have I ever appliqued, but I thought I would just go for it.  The problem that I had was how to create a template.  I searched for tulip templates, but could not find anything suitable.

I decide to delay this project for awhile and went to look at quilt books in my library for quilty inspiration.  I was thumbing through Barbara Brackman's "Making History: Quilts & Fabrics from 1890-1970" thinking I would work on another civil war quilt when I saw she had created a Georgia Tulip quilt inspired by the "Georgia Quilts" book.  Please check out www.barbarabrackman.com for more information and quilty inspiration.

I used the templates from the book and enlarged them 125% because I wanted large tulips.  I then decided on a 12x12 background square.  While hand appliqueing the first tulip, I did have an urge to just quit but told myself to keep going.  I am glad I did because I like the look of the blocks. 

The more that I create, the more I am really liking this project.