"My Flower Garden" Flowers, Blue, Purple, and Red

Red flower garden flowers

I have all 18 full flowers, 4 half flowers, 6 double petal flowers sewn together. They are no longer under any threat from the cat. I have them grouped by colors here. I wanted to look at the leaf contrast to know if I need to exchange some of the green leaves before I sew them in place. 

Purple flower garden flowers

As pictured the little green leaves are pinned to the flower where I intend to sew them. What I am discovering is inspiration for the next flower garden quilt I might like to make. I like seeing the flowers laid out here with leaves just appliqued ramdomly over the flowers and with the flowers placed close without any pathway hexagons between.    

Blue Flower garden flowers

This quilt is based on the "My English Garden" EZ Quilts Pattern booklet by Sharon Hultgren in 1991. Each of the flowers will have the diamonds placed at the edge creating a full hexagon. It also gives each flower kind of a soccer ball feel. If this was done with dark centers and diamond pieces and white "flower petals" it would  become a sports quilt instead of a flower quilt, but would still be the same quilt. The real magic happens when all of the pieces fit together. The diamonds create another smaller hexagon that resembles the tumbling blocks quilt. 

Flower with diamond placement, not sewn yet

Using the larger hexagon pieces is making this quilt top assembly a very fast process. It certainly has not diminished my love of hexagon quilts, but the next one will probably have slightly smaller hexagons.



Word of the day from Online Etymology Dictionary:

inspire (v.) 

mid-14c., enspiren, "to fill (the mind, heart, etc., with grace, etc.);" also "to prompt or induce (someone to do something)," from Old French enspirer (13c.), from Latin inspirare"inflame; blow into" (see inspiration), a loan-translation of Greek pnein in the Bible. General sense of "influence or animate with an idea or purpose" is from late 14c. Also sometimes used in literal sense in Middle English Related: Inspired; inspires; inspiring.

So, Sew, Sow, Snow Day

Stack of fresh pressed fat quarters and scraps.

Spring is just around the corner and I can hardly wait for the warm days, new flowers and fresh green plants and tree leaves. I really need to be sewing spring and summer clothes for me but it is snowing and I really don't want to sew summer clothes on a snowy day. I don't have to go anywhere and it would be a good day to sew a quilt. 

I am going to make a hexagon flower quilt top using a 5.25" finished hexagon so it should go pretty fast. The flower centers will be yellow and gold. The flower petals will be reds, blues and purples with small green 60 degree diamonds making the flower blocks into a big pieced hexagon. I have always loved the hexagon flower quilts. Yes, they can be a challenge to sew but I prefer that to the sashing in square box quilts. This one only needs 18 full blocks and a few partial blocks. 

So while it is snowing sideways out side, making it hard for cars to get up this little incline, I am going to sow the flower seeds for my next quilt and sew some copies of the flowers we will be seeing soon. 

It is snowing sideways out there and cars are slipping on this little hill. 

From Online Etymology Dictionary: 

so (adv.) 

Old English swa, swæ "in this way," from Proto-Germanic *swa (cf. Old Saxon, Middle Dutch, Old High German so, Old Norse sva, Danish saa, Swedish så, Old Frisian sa, Dutch zo, German so "so," Gothic swa "as"), from PIE reflexive pronomial stem *s(w)o- (cf. Greek hos "as," Old Latin suad "so," Latin se "himself").

The adverb so at the beginning of a sentence ('So I'll pay for it!'), probably of Yiddish origin, occurs frequently in conversation. [M.Pei, "Story of English," 1952]

So? as a term of dismissal is attested from 1886 (short for is that so?); so what as an exclamation of indifference dates from 1934. So-so "mediocre" is from 1520s; so-and-so is from 1596 meaning "something unspecified;" first recorded 1897 as a euphemistic term of abuse.

sow (v.) 

Old English sawan "to scatter seed upon the ground or plant it in the earth" (class VII strong verb; past tense seow, pp. sawen), from Proto-Germanic *sæjanan (cf. Old Norse sa, Old Saxon saian, Middle Dutch sayen, Dutch zaaien, Old High German sawen, German säen, Gothic saian), from PIE root *se- (cf. Latin sero, past tense sevi, pp. satum "to sow;" Old Church Slavonic sejo, sejati; Lithuanian seju, seti "to sow"), source of semen, season (n.), seed, etc. Figurative sense was in Old English.

sew (v.) 

Old English siwian "to stitch," earlier siowian, from Proto-Germanic *siwjanan (cf. Old Norse syja, Swedish sy, Old High German siuwan, Gothic siujan "to sew"), from PIE root*syu- "to bind, sew" (cf. Sanskrit sivyati "sews," sutram "thread, string;" Greek hymen "thin skin, membrane," hymnos "song;" Latin suere "to sew, sew together;" Old Church Slavonic sijo "to sew," sivu "seam;" Lettish siuviu, siuti "to sew," siuvikis "tailor;" Russian svec "tailor"). Related: Sewed; sewing. Sewing machine is attested from 1847.

sash (n.1) 

"strip of cloth," 1590s, "strip of cloth twisted into a turban," from Arabic shash "muslin cloth." Meaning "strip of cloth worn about the waist or over the shoulder" first recorded 1680s.