What can be done with just four quilt blocks?

Good question. Here's one answer.

Before I talk design, I wonder why these four, 9" vintage floral blocks sat for as many decades as they did before they became a quilt. What were they intended to be? Were they just for practice or leftovers from a larger project? Would the original creator be happy with my design? Ah, well. I hope so. Above all, I made them up into this little sampler specifically to further my computer quilting knowledge, certainly not to win an award for innovative piecing. 

I have to apologize that I forgot to take pictures of the individual blocks before piecing the top. Sometimes my brain advances into quilting design and I forget to snap photos of the complete process. You can see from the picture above - where I'm already quilting! - that the appliquéd blocks have been arranged into a simple nine-patch configuration with 5, 9" muslin blocks and framed with a dual border of vintage fabrics. What quilting techniques speak to me from this quilt is a medallion in the center instead of quilting each of the nine blocks separately. It's almost like quilting a whole cloth, though this wasn't my intention. I wanted an illusion of the flowers 'linked' in a circle somehow, and a medallion seemed right. 

I begin by marking the center of my quilt with a blue water-soluble pen (as I've shown in past posts and can be seen in the pictures).  I use this center marking on the quilt top to position my medallion pattern chosen, below.

With my computer tools, I've trimmed inside anything I don't want to quilt over or into. The picture of my computer screen shows how I've outlined each floral appliqué. When I quilt, my machine will only sew the medallion where I tell it to, as is seen in my next two photos.

What comes next is selecting and quilting the medallion center motif.  My computer screen shows the pattern chosen and placed in the center of the screen and how it would quilt...

...as demonstrated below on the actual quilt...

...and as completed.

With the center still needing something ... I don't know what yet ... I ponder for a while as I switch gears to consider the background behind the medallion. Certainly, the background needs quilting. So, I decide upon crosshatching. And THIS is a traditional technique I've only done freehand, never digitized. So far this project has rung true to trying new digitized techniques, where I've already incorporated appliquéd motifs within the quilting (such as I did today with the flowers) and now a digitized background fill. I choose a crosshatching pattern, drop it into my project on my screen, trim inside the medallion, and quilt:

I stand back from my quilt as quilted so far, and readdress the medallion center. Something is still missing. There isn't enough definition. Do you see it? It's flat and lacks depth.

Here I've begun to work so quickly I've forgotten to take pictures of every step of my progress, again.  If you'll look at the previous picture compared to the one below, I've already quilted two circles outside the quilted flowers next to the pearls. And now, I'm micro-stippling the spaces outside each quilted flower, freehand...

...and the finished effect. 

Now to spritz the blue marks out.  I don't want to dunk this one in water to remove them (as I've mentioned in earlier posts) because pink and red vintage fabrics have a knack of bleeding. The quilt is a bit damp but a photo is necessary here before the final ones:

The 'dry' quilt:

What can be done with just four quilt blocks? I hope I've answered that question with this single technique. There are many others, like runners, napkins and shoulder bags.  To me, these blocks evolved the way they needed to. The main reason is that two of the blocks were set on point, while the other two were not. 

As I've always said, fabric speaks to me. It's something I try to follow. And maybe, just this once, I also received a nod from the departed soul who appliquéd them so many decades ago. 

This is another reason why I quilt.