quiltingbydawn

To make the sunflower coasters, I cut strips of yellow fabric 2” wide. Using the easy dresden ruler by Darlene Zimmerman, place on strip of fabric at the 2” mark and cut. You will need 20 petals for each sunflower.

To make each petal, fold piece in half lengthwise and stitch ¼” seam across top (widest end). I like to string piece these to make them faster.

Cut them apart and turn them. I used my bamboo point turner. Once turned, press so the seam is centered. This makes your point centered.

Take 2 petals and match top edge with raw edges even and stitch ¼” seam. *It is more important that the top edge is aligned as the bottom will be covered with the center circle.

Continue adding petals until you have sewn all 20 petals. Sew the 20th petal to the 1st petal to form a ring.

Press seams all in one direction.

To Make the Center:

Cut a 4 ¼” circle from brown fabric. Baste ¼” around edge. Place a 3 ¼” cardboard circle template on top of your fabric circle and draw up the basting threads. Press, then carefully remove the template.

Pin center to sunflower.

Again, using the 3 ¼” circle template, cut a circle from batting. (I used Warm and Natural.) Center on back of sunflower and pin (from top) in place.

Using my circle cutter, I cut a 6” circle from muslin. Applying the same technique as for the center circle and a 5” cardboard circle template, I formed a large circle and pinned it to the back of the sunflower over the batting. It should cover the raw edges of the petals. (This is where it is important that you pinned the batting circle from the top side.) I hand stitched in place.

Turn over sunflower and stitch around center circle, close to edge. Quilt as desired. I used a crosshatch to resemble the seeds.

You Are Done! Enjoy!

This tutorial is for personal use only. Please respect my design. Thank you.

If you make some coasters, please email me a picture as I would love to see your creation. If you have any questions, please email me Ü

Here is the link to Google Docs in case you want to download the tutorial.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Leafs Me Happy

Welcome to my little corner in blogland! Whether you are here for the Leafs Me Happy Blog Hop or a regular follower, I hope you enjoy what you see. Today is my day to share my projects for the Leafs Me Happy Blog Hop. If you haven't been following the previous posts, you can find the complete list over at Cherry Blossoms quilting studio. I know that I have found some great inspiration and I'm sure you wouldn't want to miss it!

Of coarse, none of this would be possible without Madame Samm of Sew We Quilt and Cherry, from Cherry Blossoms. A big Thank You goes to both for their willingness to be our cheerleaders!

Although I can not say that fall is my favorite season as I do not look forward to the ~~cool~~, ~~chilly~~, cold weather ahead. What I do love about fall is the beautiful colors! We just returned from our annual trip to Door County and the colors were spectacular!

When I signed up for this hop, I was excited to start playing with fabrics in all the wonderful fall colors!

One of the things I think of in fall are sunflowers. I found this wonderful free paper pieced garden bench on Regina Grewe website. It is no longer available.

I made the bench the focal point of my sunflower garden mini quilt. Here it is pieced with the sunflowers fussy cut and appliqued. Once it was sandwiched, using FMQ and monofilament as well as metallic thread, I quilting the sunflowers and leaves. Using a zig zag stitch, I created the stems. Wouldn't you like to grab a book and relax in my garden?

Next, I began playing with the fall color of leaves and made these 2 blocks.

These blocks are 12 1/2" unfinished. I wanted to include another common fall sight ~ flying geese heading south to their winter home ~ so I stitched together rows of geese and made this asymmetric table runner. I'm calling this

Leafs Me Geesing.

Having too much fun to stop there...so I found a flying geese in a circle pattern on Caryl Bryer Fallert website. The block is 12 1/2" unfinished.

I really needed to include some pumpkins ~ so I drew up some pumpkins that could be used as a border and surrounded the circle of geese with these pumpkins.

This mini quilt is 24 1/2" and is still unfinished. Hopefully I will find some time to sandwich and quilt it soon! I really love the bright fall colors!

I also showed a little sneak peek of my mini sunflower dresden here. Well, they multiplied into 4 sunflowers that I made into coasters. These little sunflowers measure 5 1/2" across.

I will be putting together a tutorial in the near future, so if you are interested, please stop back. I'd love for you to become a follower, if you would like, so you won't miss the posting.

Thanks for visiting. It has been a lot of fun. Now join me in visiting the rest of the talented ladies on the hop today!

Tuesday 9

Till We Quilt Again

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Quilt n Queen

Polka dot classic

Moonbeams in a Jar

Stitch, stitch, stitch

Sew Me Something Good

quiltingbydawn