How many of you love sunflowers? How many of you love applique? Put the two together and you have one of my best seller applique patterns "Simply Sunflowers".
I first decided to make this quilt after taking photos in my Christchurch garden one year. The sunflower garden were simply beautiful. I snapped plenty of photos and then used several to draw up the design. I then set about making my sunflower quilt (in 2006), writing up the pattern as I went.
I started by piecing together an irregular log cabin quarter in a colorwash setting to form the background.
"Simply Sunflower" quilt pattern
I used blanket stitch applique to stitch around each shape, adding light and dark stitching to create dimension as well. You can see this easily on the stems and leaves in the photo above.
To finish off the quilt, I echo stitched the background. Echo quilting is free-motion quilting lines that echo out from the applique shape like ripples when you throw a stone into water. I stitched each echo line further apart as I went, again to create dimension.... or maybe I was just getting tired of quilting and wanted to get finished sooner. Would you have guessed?
The background is echo quilted
I have received a lot of comments about this Sunflower design over the years. One thing that quilters comment most about is how wonderfully I captured and created the bent sunflower. You can see it here in this close up... and look at the stems, you can really see the light and dark stitching in this photo.
Drooping sunflower
Four years later, I made the quilt again, this time with a background in shades of blue and much brighter yellows for the applique sunflowers.
bright yellow, golds and green fabrics for Sunflowers
If looks quite different don't you think? I named this quilt Sunflowers at Dawn
"Simply Sunflower" quilt pattern with blue background
In Fall 2010 and again in 2011, Simply Sunflowers was featured in the Keepsake Quilting catalog as a best seller so I know it has been enjoy among many quilters around the world.
Simply Sunflowers featured in Keepsake Quilting Catalog
If you would like to know about this sunflower quilt pattern, check it out on my website >>
Or maybe you would like to join me in my online workshop where I help you create your own Sunflower quilt. I include two sizes in the workshop and lots of help with shading to really bring your sunflowers to life. You can find out more about this online workshop here: "Sunflowers at Dawn" (for Simply Sunflowers quilt pattern).
This was my journey through making my sunflower quilt come to life. I'd love to hear about yours. Leave me a comment.
