Sunflower – OccasionalPiece

This block, also known as Rolling Star (Brackman 3795) has several variations that are well-known. I’ve seen this block used in multiple quilts including mine, but what amazes me is how versatile it is just by changing up the colors and the center.

Here’s a line-up from one of my Home, Sweet Home classes — the quilts are similar, but different.

I changed up the center block and added seaming for windows and doors to get this one, after I saw so many quilters turn away from the fused doors and windows, wanting to seam them instead.

Several years ago I’d written a post where I talked about making up some block ideas for my neice-by-marriage, and I still can’t believe how popular the poppy block was from that post, but of course it was a free download and those are ALWAYS popular (I don’t mind). See Notes (at the end) for link to block.

So I thought I would slide down the sunflower rabbit hole this week, and finally get the sunflower version added to my Home, Sweet Home pattern:

I put the pattern on sale (now only $7 instead of the usual $12) as a way of making it easy (no coupons to enter), and hope those looking for this pattern will enjoy it.

Home, Sweet Home with Bonus 18″ Sunflower block available here.

But the rabbit hole of sunflower blocks got deeper and I decided to do a PatternLite pattern (costing less than a Pink Drink at Starbuck’s) with a changed-up method of piecing, to emphasize the petals of the sunflower. I also added a detailed series of instructions for a Four-in-One Flying Geese block, as well as how to trim it up accurately. I put a lot more in this one than usual, but I just kept going, making blocks and having fun.

The PatternLite Sunflower! is now up in my shop.

Make some end-of-July fun!

Notes on this block:

About every other month, someone writes to me, asking if they can buy that sunflower pattern, which was an illustration on the Poppy Flower post (which was very popular in Australia). I popped it into a Google Search, trying to figure out what rando had taken off with my image, and found this:

It’s a sham website, ranking dead last in safety, in security. Don’t go there, but these guys are in the habit of stealing images and trying to sell them off to unsuspecting quilters (9 Pretty Barn Quilt Patterns for $42.88?).

Make this one, instead. It’s a lot cheaper!

Other posts about other Flower Blocks
Poppy Block and debut of Sunflower idea with the free Poppy Block download
April Flowers with a link to Totally Tulips Quilt from Missouri Star
Field Flowers with a link to Sherri McConnell’s pattern Flowers for Emma
June Flowers — a really early day post of mine, with a tutorial for a nine-patch tulip It makes me ~~snort~~ smile to see this post from nearly a decade ago.
I still love Blossom, which has flowering snowball flower blocks in three sizes.
Last, Sunny Flowers quilt, another PatternLite.

Hope that’s enough flower blocks for you. Since August is right around the corner, so many of mine in the garden have dried up with July’s heat. Guess we’ll just have to make them in fabric!

My nephew’s wife, Grace, wrote to me and asked for help. She is a young quilter, who makes awesome gooseberry jam (she shared a jar with me), so I wanted to help. The quilt was for someone close to her who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer, and she thought a quilt was needed. I agree.

She sent me the screen shot you see above, and since it was on Pinterest…and you know how much I LOVE their search engines (NOT), I thought it was easier to draft it on my computer using QuiltPro than try to find the original design (I tried…and failed…but kudos to whoever dreamed it up). Besides, that was one of those “barn” quilts, painted on wood, not a cloth quilt.

This is what I came up with. But I knew Grace wanted to move quickly, and yeah–all those pieces?

I thought about my Home Sweet Home mini quilt, and how she could make fewer blocks, but bigger blocks?

UPDATE: There is now a pattern for this block included in the Home, Sweet Home mini quilt pattern.

Grace wrote back. She loved what I’d done, but now they were thinking poppies. She sent me a sample of a quilt she’d seen. I drafted it up in my QuiltPro program, drew up a quilt. But I thought I should test out my own pattern, so I made a Poppy Block:

Poppy block constructon1 — trimming snowball corners

I think it will be cute quilt. This is a 10-inch block and I thought you’d like to have the pattern, too. Each is a PDF file which you can download.

Here’s the Poppy Block: Poppies for Grace

And here’s the quilt instructions: Poppies for Grace Quilt

It can be made in reds and greens and be thought of as poinsettias for Christmas. Or made to commemorate Anzac Day in April, for the Australians. Or red and white for a bouquet of posies for Valentine’s Day. Have fun, but please don’t print off dozens for a class or for your friends–send them here to get their own free pattern. Thanks.

About QuiltPro: they do not pay me or give me free stuff. I started using that quilt program eons ago, and they are still going strong. If you are struggling with the current software (I know, I have it and love/hate it too), consider trying this software, as it’s based on making shapes, not connecting lines. I find it pretty intuitive, but as with anything, there is a learning curve–it’s just that theirs is not quite as steep.

Making that block added to my collection of red and white triangles (ignore the interlopers in the upper right corner). I trim them to whatever measurement’s closest, without it being a weird number, and save them.

Every once in a while, I sew them into four-patches.

I haven’t decided yet what to do with them, but a couple of questions arise: do I include the Christmas prints? Or do they get their own collection? (I think so.)

Do you ever quilt with “rules”? It’s about all I remember from my beginning art classes, ages ago in college. The assignments laid out rules to create by — an edge to the sandbox — if you will, and went something like this:

Take an old piece of clothing, adhere it to a canvas and paint it like something else.
Use three shapes only.
Create a composition by taking a square of black paper, cutting out some shape and using the negative and positive pieces.
This assignment will use only two colors, but you may use any range of those colors.

And so on. There are many books out there in the marketplace for guided creativity, but they all start with a rule.

Sometimes I find little bags of treasures in my sewing room, with pieces inside that have been collected according to some rule. Like the red and white triangle rule. Or the 3-inch square rule, but I kind of think that last one’s a bit of a cheat.

About seven years ago, I saw this on Jan Burgwinkle’s blog, Be*mused, and fell in love with it. Maybe that’s why I started making little HSTs. (While she doesn’t seem to update her blog much these days, it’s still amazing to read through the archives.) So that’s my rule and I’m sticking with it: red and white triangles, although seeing this quilt again does make me wonder if I should break it.