How does a peacock feather grow into a Peacock Garden? In the land of whimsy anything can happen! While designing what I thought would be a flower bud, transformed into a peacock feather. Learn how to create your own Peacock Flower Bud in this tutorial.
Peacock Garden was inspired by the fabric line, A Beautiful Life by Kelly Rae Roberts for Benartex. The colors play off each other brilliantly and a little brightness goes a long way. The feathers give glimpses of the bright colors that help give the illusion of a peacock feather.
Foundation paper piecing is a great way to onstruct an intricate block. I like to think of foundation paper piecing as paint by number with fabric. Once you understand the basics of this great piecing method, you’ll never look back. Even the smallest of patches finish up acurately! In this tutorial I will get you started on building the Peacock Flower Bud block.
Below is an image of one of the templates needed to build the block. (Templates are shown smaller than actual size.) Notice the small patches in the middle on the long edge of the triangle. We will start with these small patches and work our way outward.
Place the template wrong side up on a light source. I find a light box to be an invaluable tool when doing foundation paper piecing. When I was a beginner, however I used to tape my templates onto a window. Where there’s a will there’s a way! Start with patch A1, pin a 2″ x 3″ piece of Rose Brocade Yellow with the wrong side of the fabric to the wrong side of the paper. (That is a very important rule to know with foundations paper piecing.) Always cover all patch lines by at least ¼”.
Place the template right side up on a cutting surface. Line up a piece of template plastic, or a post card with the A2 line.
Fold the paper over the template plastic along the A2 line and place an Add-A-Quarter ruler, or other clear ruler on top of the crease overlapping by ¼”. Trim the fabric along the edge. This leaves a nice ¼” seam allowance. Discard the excess fabric.
Unfold the paper and place it wrong side up onto a light source. Pin a 1½” x 3″ piece of Simply Damask Plum along the newly trimmed edge, right sides together.
Turn the paper right side up and sew along the A2 line indicated by the dotted red line.
Turn the template wrong side up and press the Truly Damask Plum fabric over the A2 patch.
Continue sewing on patches in numerical order following the instructions above, trimming after each patch is sewn on until the entire section is pieced and pressed. At this point the edges of the fabric around the template are very jagged. Turn the template printed side up on a cutting surface. With a clear plastic ruler trim on the cutting line, which is ¼” away from the seam line.
When the flower block is complete, the result is stunning!
I hope you will want to create your own Peacock Garden. There are so many color combinations to explore. I would love to see what you do. You can get the pattern here.
