My Rose Applique

Many quilters don't know that the majority of my applique stitching is raw edge. Even just recently, when I was showing some of my applique flowers, a number of quilters asked, "is that really raw edge?". Of course, there are some secrets in my technique which reduce fraying and give the appearance that the edges are turned under.

These techniques are used in my favorite rose applique quilt, which is a combination of pieced background and applique - "The Rose". You can see here on this close up on a bud on a corner triangle, very little, if any, fraying.

And again here on this close up of a full rose - part of the center bouquet.

This by far, is my favorite technique in applique, although, when time permits, I do enjoy a little hand applique too.

To cover most of the center background of this design, I placed the square on point. This meant the rose bouquet filled the majority of the plain square. I did allow it to overflow into the border a little too.

To square off the on-point setting, I added detailed pieced triangles....

and then added mitered borders as well.

It is important when making this to be accurate with seam allowances and cutting, but there is a little wiggle room. I find pressing the seams to one side helps a lot however there are times when I do press the seam open as well. As I was writing the pattern, I realized how important these tips are when making this design, so all my diagrams include pressing directions (red arrows in diagram below).

I also include instructions for mitered corners, my method of applique and quilting details.

This pattern is detailed, but by making each unit correctly and then piecing them together using my step-by-step instructions, it all comes together wonderfully.

When I reached the quilting stage, I decided to stipple down the background to make the rose applique pop up (you can see this in some of the photos above) and I used a rose leaf design with bud in the corner to quilt around the outer borders (templates included in pattern).

Of course, no quilt is finished without a label which I added to the back.

"The Rose" was created from Hoffman Fabrics in 2011 for display in the Hoffman Fabric booth at Quilt Market that year and has been popular ever since. This 18-page booklet is available on my website. You can find it here: The Rose

Hope you enjoy creating your Rose for this seasonal celebration. Happy Quilting!