Spring Wreath

This week we celebrate the arrival of Spring! Here in the Midwest we have already had some warmer weather to enjoy outside activities. This week's project is a scrapy fabric version of spring flowers in bloom inspired by a post from Susan Marocco in an Art Quilts Facebook group. This wreath would be perfect to use the assortment of green batiks from the March Java Membership or scraps from previous projects.

Materials Needed:

• Square wire wreath form and Bunny purchased from Dollar Tree
• Approximately 8-10 (or more) different green fabrics for leaves
• 8 Fussy cut flowers from Mini Pop Membership fabric
• Assorted Aurifil Thread Colors from Chroma Membership
• Hot glue gun
• Batting scraps

To get started I pulled an assortment of green fabrics to make the leaves. I used about 10 different fabrics and made approximately 45 leaves 2” x 4”. You may want to make a leaf template to keep them all the same size. I used some odd shapes from the Snippet membership bag layering with batting scraps with the leaf drawn on the fabric. I really like using the Sewline Mechanical Pencil for easy marking.

Some of my leaves were made from jelly roll size strips and I was able to make several leaves at once. I found it helpful to trace the outer leaf shape and vary the veins for interest. This is a great way to practice your free motion quilting and have some fun with using different thread colors.

After you free motion quilt all the leaves you will trim the leaves about 1/16” from the stitching line. It is really helpful to use a good sharp to the point scissors like these Karen Kay Buckely found in the Boost my delivery shop.

For the flowers follow the same method of layering with batting. You will want to do some free motion quilting in a bright Aurifil thread to add some texture to the flowers.

Trim the flowers close to the stitching lines. I made about 9 flowers and 45 leaves to construct the wreath.

Now for the fun of assembling the wreath. I tried to use an assortment of light and dark green fabrics distributed evenly around the wreath. I started in the corner and laid the leaves in place till I liked how it looked and then hot glued them in place onto the wire form.

I placed the leaves and flowers on the bottom half and worked my way around the wreath gluing in small sections.

Here is a back view of the wreath so you can see how I layered and glued the leaves in place.

I added a flower to the bunny and a white ribbon to hang it in the center of the wreath. I love the look of all the happy spring colors together on this fabric wreath. You could hand stitch the leaves or use a decorative stitch instead of free motion quilting. This will add a bright pop of color on your front door or even as a centerpiece on your table for a spring celebration.