Floral Alphabet Garden without the Alphabet

Earlier this year, we published the Floral Alphabet Garden pattern by Barbara Dieges. This beautiful quilt is made up of 26 flower blocks, one for each letter of the alphabet. It occurred to me the other day that some appliquers may not want the letters and prefer to create the flower on its own, so I investigated to see if this would work easily.

Some blocks can be easily made without the letter. For example, this Dandelion block. You can easily leave the D out without disturbing the design at all.

Other blocks need to be adjusted where the plant is covered partially by the letter. Like A for anemone where the stem weaves through the letter.

This is an easy fix: connect the lines of the stem where they stop and start.

Actually, you don't even need to do this when using bias binding strips for the stem. You can simply continue the bias along the whole length of the stem.

For flowers like Zinnia, you will need to make a few more adjustments. The leaf will need to be completed by joining the sides in a continuous line, as I mentioned above for the stem in Anemone. This is only to complete the design.... with Barbara's templates, you really only need to do that to complete the layout plan.

You would also need to make some sort of adjustment to the stems at the bottom so they all connect or finish off nicely. To do this, continue the stems in their same curving line until they connect or end them with a rounded or 'cut' stem. Or you could leave the bottom of the Z there as a log or piece of ground that the plants are growing from. Plenty of ideas for sure.

I decided to make L for Lily without the L of course.... and using my favorite method of applique. It was easy to make a cut stem with this technique.... and it is easy to make using hand applique too!

If you're interested in these beautiful flower blocks by Barbara, you can buy them individually or as a whole set. Each block comes with Barbara's easy method of freezer paper applique instructions or you can use your favorite applique technique like I did.

Click here to find out more about the Floral Alphabet Garden patterns