Miniature Spring Flowers

As the saying goes, "April showers bring May flowers." As such, a post on flowers seemed appropriate for closing out April and welcoming in May. The flowers that appear in the late spring also are some of my favorites. 

This month, I thought I would share a project that I recently completed.This project is one that took me three years to complete. In all honesty, I didn't work on this project steadily over the past three years, but rather in two major bursts about three years apart. I purchased this Primitive Gatherings project in early 2013 after I was introduced to wool appliqué. I actually finished the appliquéd flowers fairly efficiently that spring. After that, the project pretty much stalled. 

Enter 2016 … I made the commitment in 2016 to buckle down and get back to work on projects that were sitting around "in progress." This project was on my priority list to get finished. To give you an idea as to how small the flowers in this project are, take a look at the picture below that includes a quarter as a frame of reference. Yes, these flowers really are quite small; and, yes, I did hand appliqué around all of the flowers, leaves, and stems.The sashing strips around each of the flowers measure about 1/4 inch wide.

Part of what got me stalled on the project was the half square triangle border. I'm really not a fan of creating half square triangles. This project called for using Thangles, paper strips that are used to help you create more precise half square triangles. This finished project called for more than 90 half square triangles. Here is a sampling below at their unfinished dimensions of 1x1 inch square. That means that in the finished project, they are only 1/2 x 1/2 inch - lots of itty bitty triangles. The thought of creating that many half square triangles is probably why the project stalled.

Here are a couple of additional pictures that provide a more zoomed in look at the featured flowers. In addition to spring flowers such as iris, tulips, and daffodils, the project also includes late summers such as asters and sunflowers.

I thought I would add a few pictures of some of the April/May flowers around my own backyard. I do wish that they lasted longer than just a few short weeks.

Here are some tulips …

Miniature iris, the larger ones won't be blooming until later in May …

And finally, some lilacs that are just barely starting to bloom …

The fleeting beauty of these spring flowers brings to mind a memory verse from my early Sunday school years. Even though the flowers don't last, we can be secure in the constancy of God's Word that does last forever. In today's uncertainty and tense times, these are particularly comforting words. As Isaiah spoke …

The grass withers, the flower fades, 

But the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40:8