The Garden of My Life -
Step 4
Sunflowers
Finished Block Size: 6” x 6”
Back in the day before we had staggering levels of air pollution you could actually smell the scent of the roses as they would be carried to your nose by a gentle summer breeze. Roses are probably my favorite because they are soft, fragile, and each petal is shaped like a heart if you examine them closely. My garden drawing always had rose bushes colored in pink and red. Of course I would have other flowers that would grow in my gardens. They would all be in shades of yellows, umber, rust and gold petals would capture the rays of the sun. These flowers would resemble sunflowers but I had never seen them in real life. We lived in the city and people did not grow them as land and space were limited. We did have brown eyed Susan’s, marigolds, and daisies that were probably my inspiration for adding these yellow flowers to the garden drawings. My grandmother was the one with the rose fetish and this was another wonderful woman who touched my life and inspired me to become the woman I am today. Nonnie, as we called her, tried for years to propagate these bushes from cuttings her neighbors and friends would giver her. She tried for yellow rose bushes carefully placing them under glass jars in the flower beds. They never seemed to work until the year she died. The rose bush from a cutting worked! She probably cared for the cutting in angel status and that was why it grew. I will never forget that song “Honey. I love you” that was popular that year. It was a woman who planted a tree and then died but the man singing admired how big the tree has grown and that he missed her. That woman in the song died in the spring just like Nonnie did. The hardest loss I ever felt was my Mother gaining her angel status. Now I too understand my mother’s sadness when Nonnie joined the angel ranks.
Mother was not a very creative woman although she did sew out of necessity. We were not a wealthy family and with six children she was forced to make clothing. Mother shared that gift of sewing with me around forty years ago. I wanted to dress stylishly and the only way for that to happen was to sew my own. It worked and I made lots of things for myself. The last project she made was a rug hook sunflower pillow. She was so simple that she took a yard of sunflower fabric to cover the back and hand stitched her rug hook picture to the top. After I used it for years I decided to wash and it shredded to little pieces since she did not bind the edges. I have used the sunflower fabric to make a great quilt for my niece as a wedding gift. Sara, my niece is getting married next August and will be grateful to get the fabric mom left behind.
This month our block will be…… you guessed it right I hope. Sunflowers to set in the quilt made of lovely gold, umber and rust fabrics.
Instructions
Cutting:
From Beige multicolor dots print: cut 12 squares 7” x 7”
Using the appliqué template included, print and adjust size until the
sunflowers are 5½” tall. (Template does not include seam allowance for needle turn technique):
From yellow, umber, rust and gold: cut 27 petals from each color,
A total of 108 sunflower petals
From Brown print: cut
12 sunflower centers
From Green print: cut
12 stems and 24 leaves
Fold square in half on both diagonals to find the center. Arrange pieces on square as you desire. Using your favorite technique, appliqué your sunflower to the square.
Make 12 blocks. Give each block a final press and trim to 6 ½” x 6 ½”.
See you next month!
