I inherited my MIL's stash several years ago. She loved to applique and had several applique projects cut out with maybe one block pinned or one block someone had given her as a pattern. The tulip pattern block (picture below) she had pinned, is 12" x 12", and she had 84 tulip blossoms cut out (42 sets with 2 of each pattern). No stems, but there is a cardboard pattern for the blossom and stem. (I think she wanted to make 14 quilts :?: Has anyone done one before? Does it have leaves or grass or anything at the bottom? It looks awfully plain or top-heavy or like something is missing. Before I start working on it, I would like to see a picture of a quilt or a block if anyone has done one. Thanks for any suggestions

What a wonderful gift! Being that there's 42 blocks, she was probably making one quilt 6 blocks wide by 7 blocks long. Although, I didn't located a template, I found a nice coloring page that you might be able to adapt. What a wonderful future family, generational heirloom.

http://www.morecoloringpages.com/tulip_1890.html

I'd say use 3 leaves in different angles. I or 2 are too artificial, but most landscapers use 3 or 5 trees or shrubs together to make a pleasing natural scene.
That one RUSewing showed us with the bent leaf is pretty, it balances the large flower nicely.

Yes, they definantly need leaves. You could also but them in pretty flower pots or vases to dress them up some. Just a thought.

I would probably make bias stems and curl them around each other.

My impression is she had these pinned to study the placement of the flowers and stems and I bet you she was going to add leaves too. A tulip without leaves means it was picked for a bouquet, you need leaves to offset the flowers and make it natural appearing.

Carol J.

All of your ideas are wonderful, and I have mulled them all over and I'm going to use a lot of them, mashed all together. I went online and printed pictures of several drawings of tulips, including RUSewing's picture, blossoms, stems and leaves, and I think I will make several versions, with each block having a little different arrangement of leaves and stems, and I'll probably trim the flowers a little bit too, make them not so fat at the bottom, and embroider and applique petals down them to make them pop more. Since while there are two flowers of each print, there are no prints repeated, so since the prints are different, each block can be a little different with placement of flowers, leaves, stems, maybe grass, vine, a petal lying beside it having fallen off, whatever strikes my fancy while I am working on it. Now my decision is the backing color for the blocks. I have in my stash a whole stack muted jewel tones that I think would be really pretty, with the darker tones behind the light prints and the light tones behind the dark prints. It might be a little more interesting than all white background, especially since a lot of the prints are light. Decisions, decisions . . . .

KyKat,you are on the right track and your idea sounds great to me. The jewel tones will give your quilt a lot of pizzazz and your MIL will be smiling down on you. You have a good sense of quilting, I would say, congratulations. Keep it up.

Carol J.

Here's what I've come up with -- at least a rough draft. It will be refined and embroidered, and each block will be a little different, but compared to what it started as, I think it's an improvement. The second picture shows what I plan for backgrounds with the tulips on them. I have a bunch more tulips.

Adorable KyKat, I really like your selection and the three leaves set the flowers off so nice. Still reminds me of the one I made for my DD when she was a little girl 50 years ago.

Carol J.