"Grandmother's Choice" chooses "difficult" this week

Did anyone else wake up this morning, pull up the newest installment of Barbara Brackman's Grandmother's Choice Block of the Week and go "YIKES!"

In case you haven't looked yet, here's the block courtesy of the above blog:

And it's pieced.  And it's an 8 inch block.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'm cutting out templates right now and have pretty much decided that I'll give the piecing one shot but that puppy is going to have to be appliqued.  I mean, REALLY......

I'll probably piece the gold petals and outer cream background then applique the center circle onto a white larger circle and then applique the pieced segment onto that.  Finally, applique the whole thing onto the green square.  Those little white points in the center are going to be the death of me.  I would very much like to piece the entire center minus the center circle, and then put it on a green square but after making a tracing template and drawing those nine points on a piece of fabric I'm even scared to cut them out!  So tiny......

One thing's for certain - any sewing of seams is going to be by hand.