Sunflowers

I LOVE Sunflowers!

When the summer heat starts cranking up (like it is now), I bring out the sunflowers.  I like these big sunflowers and decorate with other sunflower themed items.  Bears and birdhouses to name a few.

My love for sunflowers is not new thing.  I have been collecting sunflower themed cuties for years.  Here are just a few.

I have also been collecting sunflower quilt projects in a zip lock bag. None of which have been finished.  Over the weekend I pulled out the bag because it is sunflower time.

Check out this October 2000 issue of  American Patchwork & Quilting by Better Homes and Gardens Issue 46 Vol 8 No 5.  Inside is this darling little hexagon sunflower quilt by Jill Reber.

I started this quilt sometime after 2000. It seems every summer about this time I bring out the sunflower project bag with this issue folded open to this page with the unfinished quilt top. I get warm fuzzys when I see this bag of unfinished sunflower projects. I look at this little mini quilt with love.  I make a few stitches. I press it. But I don't know why I have never finished it.  One year I trimmed the edges because I had decided I didn't want to make the full size.   

However, THIS is going to be the year of the finished sunflower mini quilt!

See I have it pin basted and I am ready to start hand quilting.  But when I was making this photograph of my actual quilt along with the magazine article, I notice that I still have to add the leaves.  I am going to get on that tonight.  Got to finish this one! 

Another year I started this applique sunflower mini quilt.  For several years I have worked on this one only to get side tracked by something else and it gets put back in the bag with the other one. Unfinished.  Yesterday, I added the black bird and the center circle.  I hand quilted around the background squares with a matching thread and did accent hand quilting with black on the sunflowers. I am determined to get this one finished as well.  

I am a little bit proud of this one.  It is my own design. I didn't have a pattern. I brought together ideas from other projects like using the pieced background of neutral scraps.  I took inspiration from vintage applique for the circular floral design.  I drew the bird freehand and placed him on a rather oddly long branch.  Sometime it takes years for a project to come together.  Quilters do have patience!   All that is left for this one is the binding.

Another year I started these little sunflower appliques.  Again  I worked on them for a little while and then they ended up back in the project bag with those other two quilts.  At the moment I don't know how I want this one to finish so it may go back in the project bag. I am giving myself permission to set this one aside until I receive the inspiration needed to complete it.   

I also have a stash of sunflower fabric. 

Here are a couple of zipper bags I made to sell in my Etsy store.  

Do you have a favorite flower like the sunflower that makes you really happy?

Stay cool!  It is getting really hot and dry in south Texas.

Thanks for stopping by!   

Note:  The big sunflowers are from Hobby Lobby!