Blooming inside

I've had a little applique frenzy here lately, either while I'm hiding out from the heat or stuck inside with the rain. So far I have 15 finished, but my mother the applique queen took one of mine with her, and she reports that she has 17 done. We're using up her hand dyes and some of mine, cutting 10 inch squares of whatever black is in our stash and needle turn appliquing them for an eventual queen-sized quilt. We don't have a final plan yet  and I'm pushing for hand quilting them, but she's not so sure. Evenutally this may become a fundraising quilt for my sons' school. Or not.

Here's six more blocks laid out. I'm having fun choosing colour combinations, but soon I have to cut a few more parts, since my inventory is getting low. You can see I cut five blocks from a Kaufman rose print. My aim here is to not have a matchy-matchy quilt, but a more organic one, with variations in the black to create interest and slightly different positions of leaves and stems and flowers. I'm eyeballing the layout of each, using my first one as a reference. click on the label below to see the beginning of this process.