Aurifil’s wildly popular series, Color Builders, continued in 2022 as the Flora applique block of the month! We are continuing to create videos and blogs as support for our subscribers to confidently make these appliqué blocks each month as well as quilt them into a beautiful finished product. Let’s take a look at the February block: Stinking Corpse Lily!

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The 2022 Aurifil Color Builders block of the month, Flora, was designed and developed by Aurifil’s own Kate Brennan in partnership with graphic designer Christina Weisbard. Patterns are centered around flora-themed appliqué, allowing each featured monthly plant to take center stage. Flora is a celebration of Aurifil’s variegated thread. Aurifil produces 36 variegated thread colors, threads that contain multiple colors or multiple shades of one color. Twenty-four of these shades are represented in the 2022 program. The threads are available as part of our current BOM program:

Today’s featured plant is The Stinking Corpse Lily. It is native to Sumatra and Borneo, and is one of the three national flowers for the country of Indonesia. The plant produces the largest individual flower on earth, grows to a diameter of 3-1/2 feet, and weighs up to 24lbs. It has a strong odor of decaying flesh to attract insects to aid pollination. 

I am a student of appliqué right along with many of the Quilting Rockstars this year, and Frangipani is my first full, start-to-finish appliqué project. You can catch all of the videos of me working on my blocks inside the free Quilting Rockstars Facebook Group. It’s also a great place to ask questions if you’re new to appliqué or free motion quilting!

Video: Quilting the Stinking Corpse Lily

Quilting Plans for Stinking Corpse Lily

Important, quilty note: If you’re waiting to put your block of the month together into a sampler, then you probably don’t need quilting plans yet. But, it’s always fun to start planning!

Let’s take a look at the steps I took to finish my block:

First, in between fusing my appliqué and quilting, I “painted” my raw edges with thread using Barb Persing’s method. If you’re not familiar, be sure to download her free workbook here. Remember to put freezer paper or another stabilizer under your block for edge painting!

Then, after basting, it’s time to quilt. With these appliqué blocks, the flower or plant is the star of the show, so I only chose a background fill motif. I started by stitching in the “ditch” around the flowers and leaves to help them “pop” from the background then began to quilt the negative space.

Plan 1 is ginkgo flowers. This motif mimics the shape of the Stinking Corpse Lily, connecting it to the background

Plan 2 “grounds” the flower by creating the context of the plant’s vines and the surrounding brush. This is most similar to my final quilting design. I eliminated the leaves (too busy for my liking), and used green thread throughout

Plan 3 simply adds color and fill in the form of riff quilting. The connection between the flower and the background is done with color rather than motif shape. This is the most densely quilted option, especially considering the dense pebbles I chose for my flower.

In all three instances, it’s important to realize that quilting with Aurifil 50 wt creates a much finer line than my digital drawings!

Resources

Here are some other resources you may enjoy as well:

• Blogs: Quilting Plans for other blocks in the Flora pattern

• To build your collection of thread, subscribe to our current Aurifil Color Builders

• Quilting Rockstar Band Camp: Appliqué Edition — 4 hours of high quality fusible appliqué education on demand from multiple instructors

• Blog: Basic Tips for Quilting Appliqué

• Free Ebooks, including the Confident FMQ Workbook: The Quilting Rockstar Library