Another gorgeous outfit from the Cherry Blossom Girl.

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. . . a song by the Statler Brothers from the '60s with the following lyrics? "Counting flowers on the wall, That don't bother me at all. Playing Solitaire till dawn With a deck of fifty-one." That song has become an ear-worm for me every time I work on a piece from the series I call "Wallflowers" -- I find myself humming it against my will as I'm cutting and stitching. The only way to get rid of it is to turn on the radio and tune into the classical station -- and even then, those catchy lyrics do not go away easily. However, I applied a new technique to the latest piece in the series while those lyrics whirled around in my head, and I liked the results. Each strip of the flower was traced onto freezer paper; the template was ironed to the fabric; and a quarter-inch seam allowance was added before it was cut out. I folded down the top edge of each strip and layered all of them in order onto the master pattern (above). I used polyester monofilament to stitch each strip to the one above it; then the side edges were folded over and the entire flower was stitched to the background. I left the freezer paper in the piece for three reasons: (1) the quilt will never be washed; (2) I cut away the background behind the flower to eliminate the bulk; and (3) I couldn't pull the paper out without tearing the stitches (reason #3 was the most compelling). The result is titled "Wallflowers: #3" and I hope to display it at a future gallery show. It's available for sale, too; just contact me at [email protected] and I'll give you the details.