Thursday, June 06, 2013

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.

Waiting for leaves

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.

Stems added Appliquéd first corner

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).

7 comments:

Terri said...

Thanks for sharing your process... I'd never think of that. (Love the stars and flowers!)
Hugs

Julierose said...

I love those star flowers! I love hexagon work and want to try these, too; thanks so much for your generous share! Hugs, Julierose

Anonymous said...

Oh, Sophie, that's stunning! I love seeing what you're doing with this. This will be an absolute treasure. I hope you are keeping this.

BJ said...

Beautiful work.

Renee said...

It looks great so far! The stars turned into beautiful flowers!

Paulette said...

That's a clever idea to do the applique on the whole square and then cut it diagonally when it's time to sew it to the other parts. It's really looking good so far!

Terri said...

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT Sophie! That is going to be a treasure when it's completed.

Terri Coty

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