Sunny Days

Last week I went to Ruby Scissors Quilt Shop to look for fabrics to make a sunflower mini quilt as my new mini for the month of August.  I had in my head to use batik fabric but wasn't able to find any in a bright yellow/orange that I wanted.  I ended up buying printed cotton fabric in the exact golden yellow I was looking for.  I bought a marbled olive green to use for the leaves and a mini print on brown to use as the center of the sunflower to represent the "seeds".

I bought a dresden plate template at Joann's to make the flower petals.  It was very easy to use and worked out great.  I made a larger center for the sunflower than the center that the pattern included with the template called for.  For my center, I traced a saucer on the back of the fabric and also on some fusible interfacing.  I sewed the "textured side of the interfacing to the right side of the brown fabric and sewed along the circle marking.  Then I clipped the outside curve, cut a snip in the interfacing and turned the circle right side out.  Next I ironed the the center with the fusible side of the interfacing to the ride side of the center of the sunflower petals.

Since then, I've been slowly working on hand appliqueing the elements on an unbleached muslin background.  So far I really like how it looks.  The hubs recognized it as a sunflower, so I guess I'm doing okay!!  Hopefully, I'll get it quilted before the first of August!