Made by Amanda

Holiday backlog, sewing machine still in the shop...sigh. There are some things I'd really like to get started on, here.

When I got married, my aunt gave me a quilt made by my great-grandmother. She had saved one for each of the female cousins. My sister got a grandmother's flower garden, and I got this:I had stored it in a chest until the beginning of this month, when I figured I might as well quit being afraid of messing it up and enjoy it a little bit. I will take it off again and put it back up in a few weeks. It is pretty old, but I'm not sure exactly how old. The quilting is all by hand, and much of the piecing appears to be, as well. I love the color scheme, the egg yolk yellow and the bright red. The fabric of the top seems to have been purchased just for this quilt, but the backing looks like it might be partly of bleached feed or flour sacks.

I looked on the Internet to find out what that pattern is called. I looked and looked, but it is hard to google something you don't know the name of. I looked for round quilt blocks, starburst blocks, sunburst blocks, and just paged endlessly through online lists of quilt block templates, and got nowhere.

Then I went to the library (have I mentioned how I LOVE THE LIBRARY?!) and paged through random quilt books until I found a picture of a quilt in the same pattern. It is called a Sunflower, or Russian Sunflower. Knowing the name, I found a few examples online, and a template, which I will try someday when I learn how to do curves and set-in seams. It's a little beyond my ability right now.