Finishing Fleur Lumineuse

In August, I finished the Fleur Lumineuse art wall hanging. When we left off this project, the base quilting was finished.

I turned attention to the collage. The rose was assembled on parchment paper, but the stem needed to be recut. I wanted to have the stem hang off the edge of the base, to have something unexpected.

The new stem is cut, and lightly tacked to the flower with just pressure. The tacky nature of the Steam-a-Seam 2 makes this possible.

On the back side of the bottom of the stem, I fused green fabric so it would be finished.

Next, I bound the base so that the stem could extend over the binding with a small section hanging freely. I used all the bits left over, so the binding has a lot of piecing in it. Some sections match the piecing, extending that look onto the binding. Then, the scary part, actually fusing the rose. I placed it, then stood back to look a few times to be absolutely sure it was where I wanted it. Then, I took that deep breath, summoned the courage, and fused it in place. Fusing requires patience as you cannot ‘iron’ the applique. You must use an up-and-down motion with the iron, leaving it in place long enough for the glue to melt.

I completed the fusing, then let it sit for an hour to completely cool. Next was to stitch the petals. I began by finding thread colors to match the collage.

I started with the dark pink, stitching the darker petals with a straight stitch near the edge. I looked at all kinds of ways to do this. Some people use a zigzag, some use a satin stitch, others stitch the edge like this, and a few even try decorative stitches. It seems like it is one of those things that is just a choice, not a rule.

I did the light pink next, finishing the rose.

On the stem, I added some curved lines on the stem to give the impression of dimension. The edge stitching goes all the way around the stem at the bottom, through the binding.

The last thing was to add a label.

All done. I am fairly happy with the way it turned out. For a first attempt, not too bad.

I had planned to embellish it with some seed beading and maybe some rhinestones to simulate dew drops on the rose, but I ran out of time. I entered it into the Mountain State Fair as it was. I was delighted to see it with a second place ribbon!