Stems, Blooms and (later) Leaves

Slow progress still counts as progress, right?  Here's a peek at the first of the English paper-pieced Little Daisies appliquéd to the background of the setting squares for the lone star quilt that I decided upon as my June goal for a Lovely Year of Finishes.

I think the stems begin to reinforce the idea of the star shapes as flowers and the leaves to come will make them seem even more flower-like. 

I started with squares that will later be sliced in half diagonally and sewn to the center to put it on point. First I added the stems on the machine and now I'm hand appliquéing the EPP stars in place.

The paper–or in my case, card stock–does help maintain the straight edges and points of the flowers ... but also seems to slow me down as it's harder to manipulate the fabric because of the stiffness. These photos show where I am now.  One corner (three flowers) done, three more (nine flowers) to go. And then I'll be taking a really hard look at the un-flat nature of the center and adding these to it to put it on point.

Blue leaves will be added after the setting triangles are in place and the outer border is added and the option for the leaves to cross into the border.  While I work on these, I have been thinking about design options for the pieced border that comes next.

If you like the 8-petalled daisies, you can download the templates (for a 6 inch block) from my Block Patterns page. The pattern was intended for hand-piecing–I used the center and petals to cut shapes for English paper piecing (EPP).