Week 4 - Kansas Sunflower

With both the Civil War block of the week, and this Grandmother's Choice, it usually takes longer for me to choose the fabrics than it does to make the block. I knew when I opened the post this morning that this block would be an exception.

 

I have been waiting for a reason to use Judy Mathieson's freezer paper technique for piecing one of these circular designs since Kerry (Dorry's sister) used it on a very complicated block for the International Round Robins. I decided to base my choices for the petals on the sunflower, with the darker gold on the inside.  Dorry sent me the intensely dark green I saw in many of the images I found when I did a search.  She also provided the fabric with the center flower.  My mother gave me four small remnant pieces of the outer sunflower print many years ago.  I believe she made placemats with them.  The four pieces had the same repeat - she must have fussy cut her rectangles.   That made it easy to come up with a dramatic sunflower frame for the flower.

This was a challenging block to put together - the result makes it worthwhile.