Saturday, September 22, 2012

Halfway there!

I still have to applique the center circle and applique the whole thing to the background but Look!  I have hand stitched the white and yellow petals together and there are actually points and everything.  I am rather proud of myself.  I'm not the greatest hand piecer in the world, so if I can do it anyone can - in case anyone was about to give up.  My tip is to make a plastic template of the stitching line and trace the shapes on the back of the fabric.  Cut them out with an approximately 1/4" seam line (not so critical to be exact since you are pinning and fitting the pieces based on the drawn sewing line) and hand stitch.  The way they go together they sort of chain up until they join into a circle at the end,  I did inner white petals onto the yellow ones and then inserted the outer white arcs.  I'm not going to lie and say easy-peasy but it's doable.  I would love to see someone else's blocks.

I just realized that one of the quilts my grandmother pieced and my mom had machine quilted in the 1960's is a sunflower block.  A whole quilt of these, even if it's a small one?  And she sewed the circle into the outer arcs, too, instead of appliqueing it like I'm going to.  And inserted the center circle too.  My respect for my grandmother's sewing skills just jumped.

1 comment:

Katie said...

Looks great! Mom just made a quilt with circles like that. She appliqued them on to the background, then cut away the background behind the circle and pressed the seam allowances towards the outside of the block. Then it looks like it was pieced in rather than appliqued on. Does that make sense? :-)