Tulips a Gift of Friendship

Recently, a friend came for lunch with a cheerful bunch of tulips. They inspired the artquilt that you see here.

Let me share the artistic journey with you. Here are photos of the inspiration: tulips ...

...and the Piazza San Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome.

Usually, I sketch an image first, but the red color was so inviting that I just painted them with acrylics. The background is in gold and silver tones.

To keep the tulips as vibrant as possible, I hand-stitched them with black sewing thread. Sometimes outline quilting seems right and at other times I prefer the continuous line of pulling a thread through the quilted stitches (Cordonet stitch, is that right?).

Time to finish the piece by quilting the middle- and background with a home sewing machine.

Hope you enjoyed this step-by-step approach.

Feel free to leave your comments.