The Gift of Poppies

Several months ago, I pulled out a beautiful Vintage “Poppies” Quilt that was gifted to me by a very dear friend. My friend had no provenance for the quilt, so I started doing some research. I discovered that this quilt came from a pre-printed quilt “kit” from the early 1900s by Home Needle Craft Creations. These “kits” included a pre-printed top which included placement for appliques as well as hand quilting. It also contained specific instructions for fabric and threads.

The quilt measures 81X100 made of solid red and green fabrics. The quilter also embroidered the stems, some of the leaves, and the centers of the poppies. It has a scalloped binding.

You can imagine what ideas kept swirling around in my head! I really wanted to share this quilt with my students, so that is where I started.

What you see below will be a 12” block. The design is taken from a small portion of the quilt.  It was quite fun to applique the big flower pieces.  The curves of the leaves were a little more challenging at first until I figured out how to stitch them.

The block is not finished, I still need to decide how much embroidery to add.  Have no fear, the stems are a little wider than the ones on the quilt and sewn with cotton fabric.  The original maker embroidered the stems using a small satin stitch!!