I wasn't sure which way to word the title of this blog, It's a black quilt with a holiday dahlia -- not a black dahlia! Anyway, this was a "practice" quilt for me. I've never done a giant dahlia pattern, ribbon border, or a black quilt. I wanted to make something pretty for the holidays, just in case it turned out ok!
The dahlia pattern was a bit of a challenge, once I got the hang of it, it was much easier. There is a way to make a secondary pattern so that you see the "petals" that I want to try next time -- hint: light, medium, dark one direction, single colors the other direction. Can you figure it out?
The ribbon border was fun and easy, and sewing with black thread on black fabric wasn't as hard to see as I feared! The detail is hard to see here, but I did circles on either side of the ribbon, then straight lines 1/4" apart in the rest of the border. The lighter black towards the center has a meandering feather pattern in it, and for the dahlia, each colored row was sewn in a long feather.
