Fall Sunflower Quilts

If you've followed along for awhile, you probably know I have a collection of dishes in the shape of flowers, fruits and veggies that I've mostly picked up here and there at thrift stores. Each season I like to switch it up and now that fall is officially here it's time to bring out the tomatoes, corn, pumpkins and sunflowers.

I always struggle a little with making this change because I really really love the summery flower, fruit and veggies dishes. They are all so colorful, bright and cheery. I just hate to put them away. You can see some of them here (veggies) here and here (fruits). Plus it's a reminder that summer has past for another year. But once the fall stuff is up I love it too.

Along with the dishes come a couple of fall quilts to complete the decor. I posted last week about the sunflower quilt that I've hung for years even though it was un-quilted. Probably no one but me ever really knew because it's at the end of the room and seen from a distance so most people probably wouldn't have noticed or were certainly to polite to say anything. Now it's finally done. Wahoo!!!  It looks so much better finished. More real if you know what I mean. Definitely a sight I've got to keep in mind to help me stay motivated to finish all the other UFO's.

Anyway here's the finished sunflower quilt I'm calling "Sunflowers for Vincent". It turned out relatively well if I do say so myself. I just have to spend more time practicing the free part of free motion.

The other quilt is a bit smaller and was also done years ago based on a pattern called "21st Century Bull's Eye" in a book called Quilts from Aunt Amy. The book's been around for awhile but has lots of great patterns many of which would look terrific done up in more modern fabrics. The bull's eye pattern uses a raw edge applique technique and is very easy to do. I fussy cut large sunflowers from several different fabrics for the centers and then used smaller scale sunflower prints to surround them. The backgrounds for each block are made from an assortment of green leafy prints. Every so often I threw in black, white and a touch of red. The black gave it contrast. The white added a little sparkle. And the red helped expand the color palette and add more depth. Without these extra colors everything would have been just a little too flat.

I did minimal quilting with a single free motion flower in the center of each block. Hard to see in the picture but easy to do.

So, do you switch up your quilts with the season? What do you do with them? I'd love to hear how you use all your beautiful quilty creations. Keep on stitching.

Fresh Tossed

Another month of summer begins and it's time for another fruit/veggie quilt in my kitchen. August around here is when the gardens really start to produce all their bounty of veggies. I have friends who have the most amazing garden every summer. Tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, onions . . . you name it they probably grow it. As for our garden, I'm more of a flower gardener than a veggie gardener, but we do manage a couple of tomato plants every year. They produce enough for us and the tomato worms. Can not believe how big tomato worms are. ICK!!! Sorry but I am not a worm girl. Have to have my husband pull them off when I see one.

The design of this quilt is a mix of all kinds of salad goodness. I foundation pieced the blocks using a juicy tomato print for the center that I wonky cut. Then I added varying width strips of green veggies followed by colorful veggies and ending with another border of green. For the center block I switched up this order. I used the leftover scraps of all the colorful veggie to piece an outer border.

And what better way to serve up some fresh veggie goodness than in my veggie dish collection. You know I love my fruit and veggie dish collection. : )  Here's some of the veggie dishes.

A very colorful quilt to say the least. It's perfect as a tabletopper when serving some fresh veggies to snack on. I love eating fresh garden salads this time of year. Makes me feel healthy. So here's to eating well. Now go eat your veggies.

Spring is Here

I LOVE spring! I'm a color person and after a long winter of drab colors, I'm so so ready for spring. Green is my favorite color. All the new little leaves emerging always feels so fresh and clean to me. And then there's the flowers and all their fabulous colors . . .

I can never have enough flowers. I'm such a sucker for picking up yet another little pot of something to bring home and plant in the garden. I can spend hours at the greenhouse trying to decide which colors to plant for the summer. Kind of like hours in the quilt shop drooling over all the fabric. I'm almost as bad buying flowers as I am buying fabric. 


I guess that's why I have so many floral fabrics in my stash. Sometimes I think gardening with fabric is easier than in real life. No watering everyday. Once you "plant" some florals in a quilt, they stay as bright and fresh as ever. And you don't have to weed. Gotta love that! 


Every spring, I bring the garden indoors by putting up some of my floral quilts and my floral ceramics collection. It makes the room feel new and fresh.

This is the quilt that takes center stage. I started it in a class taught by Sandy Bonsib a few years ago. It's made entirely from my floral stash. While the fabrics are pretty traditional and not what I buy these days, I never tire looking at all the individual prints and colors. I think that's the beauty of scrappy quilts. They offer so much eye candy. Every time you look at a scrappy quilt you can see something new.


And these are some of the floral ceramics I've picked up here and there mostly at flea markets. 

I love getting all these colorful floral quilts and dishes out every spring. 
It makes me happy. : )
Hope spring is renewing your quilting passion and making you happy.