I loved the way the large-scale floral worked in my January project but it was time to get serious about burning through some yardage.

This poppy print is so cheery and spring-like.  It had to remain whole.  I thought it would look great on my dining room table.

I trimmed and squared the floral fabric.  I cut 5″ wide strips of the dark blue fabric for a border.  The border was a bit plain so I added random squares of a light blue fabric to break it up.

I hand quilted with embroidery floss.  I used mostly matching colors and added some shapes to the border to tie the fabrics together better.  Next time I’ll try more contrasting colors to make the quilting pop.

I added some extra quilting to the border to better tie the colors together. The green starburst is the same pattern as in the center of the poppies.  The light blue circles soften the lines of the square patches.

It took weeks to quilt because I could only do a little at a time before going crazy.  I now have huge sewing callouses on my fingers.  I can safely say that I’ve gotten hand quilting out of my system!  Back to the machine for my next project.

The back is a solid blue. I finished the quilt with my usual binding in the same fabric as the border.

Another on time project!  Yeah!