I've been meaning to make a peony flower block for quite some time. Actually, since my dear friend sent me some photos of hers a couple of years ago.
I didn't want to make white peonies like Anita's so I chose shades of pink. I had plenty of fabrics to choose from... a whole container full!
For the pattern requirements, I recommend using at least 3 or 4 shades of the color you want for the flowers, giving details on where to place them. If you have more shades than that, there is a simple method I use to determine where they can be incorporated.
I start by laying out all the fabrics in order from dark to light.
Then I break the line of fabrics in three places so I have four groups - one for the lightest fabrics, a second for medium/light, another for medium-dark, and the last for dark. Now, when the pattern calls for a particular shade, say light or dark, I just select one fabric from that group.
This technique is exactly what I did for my peony flower block .....and, although I used many shades of fabric, it doesn't mean I needed to have many shades of thread to match. In fact, with 10 shades of pink fabric, I only used three shades of pink thread - light, medium, and dark.
As you can see, there is a lot of stitching in this flower block.... it took me a while. Because of this, I decided to add a second option in the pattern. I grouped some of the petals together so they can be cut as one piece. The lines to differentiate the petals can be either embroidered or drawn in with a fabric pen. This makes the block much easier and quicker to make.
For my finished block, I created each petal individually. This is how it turned out....
This Peony block is my 71st BOW flower block. If you'd like to make this block too, you can download it here: Peony Flower Block
You can find all my BOW flower blocks here: Collection of Flower Blocks
