The Magic Carpet.

Inspiration can come from so many places, including a Persian carpet.  The carpet is small, made with silk and needless to say, one of a kind.  It was a Christmas gift a few years back, which one very special lady received,  from the love of her life.  How could he top this one, ever?  A quilt inspired by the carpet.  It is a combination of machine and hand applique, with hand quilting.

The Corners.

Design elements for the corners.

 Creating templates for the applique.

The center and the border designs.

Using thin bias strips to outline the applique.

Reverse applique was used in the center, to show the ivory background fabric.

Machine applique with blanket stitch for the leaves and petals.

Lots of satin stitch, to stitch the blue designs.  The green bias, are stitched by hand, so is the red dots.

The center of this quilt.

The whole quilt design on paper.

The finished quilt.

This is a queen size quilt, with a grid pattern of quilting.  This quilt was made in a record time of just two months.   When the gift was unwrapped on Christmas morning, in 2010, it was one of the best kept secrets.  Her own daughter had to take photo's of the small Persian carpet, when her Mom was out of the house, as to not,  let the cat out the bag. .....

This is just a picture of the carpet, considering how small it is, it had a big impact on the final result.