March Wreath

Happy Spring Ya'll!  I know you folks up north are looking for a little sunshine and green.  Believe me it's just around the corner.  Down here the weather has been getting steadily warmer and warmer.  I looked outside for inspiration for this months Wreath Block.  Look at what I found.
All of these beautiful flowers are popping up in my yard.  It is wonderful to see the color again.

This months block is the Tulip Block found at QuiltBlockGalore.  I had planted tulip bulbs in the hopes of early color.   The squirrels had other ideas and decided they needed them to survive the winter.  It looks as though this is the only tulip that will be sprouting at my house this spring.

Originally, I had used scraps from my Heart Quilt for the background.  The values between the reds and the pinks were too similar.  In the end I used a tea died muslin for the background, much better.  I got a little a lazy and left the pinks at the top of the tulip. The result is a flower my daughter said looks more like a rose than a tulip. (Just one more thing I did wrong that day:)

  I tried to separate the background from the flower and the leaves by changing the quilting.  Sadly this did not give the definition I had hoped.

I used a wide zigzag quilt pattern on the leaves.  I really like the effect, not to mention, I love the green stripe as leaves.