Flower Power - Blog Hop Twist-a-long

Yes, I lived through the 1960s (junior and high school years - please don't do the math). Today we revisit the 1960s and what I remember, living in California at the time, is FLOWER POWER.

(Click here to view this in your web browser) 

But, first some pics of me in the 1960s. Notice this first one; I kept the date on it so it would be believable. LOOK AT THAT CAR IN THE BACKGROUND ON MY STREET!!!

In 1965 I was 13 years old, living in San Jose, California. SEE THAT CAR?!!

 How about Christmas morning? I'm with Kathy on the left (about 6 years old) and Janet on the right (about 11 years old). Get a load of those rollers! No wonder my dad spent most of his time out in the garage (4 daughters and a wife).

I don't think it did a lot of good, but a girl has to try!

How did those curlers work out? (Me, a few years later - did I really have that much hair?)
Oh, and did I say that my mom was an Avon lady who sold makeup door to door?

There was a LOT of teasing going on with that hair; and lots of eye makeup

And then an Easter morning with Janet (1 year younger than me; no wonder my mom floated in and out of sanity all those years . . .)

Janet and me, high school. Mom, in her 40s and losing the victory

Flower Power (Lazy Daisies fabric from 2007)

I remembered this awesome panel I bought in 2007, but I couldn't find it in my stash. It has a deep, solid black background. Where was it? Can anyone say, "Clean up time?" 

This collection was a wildly popular line from Lakehouse Fabrics. There were fabrics that also had light blue and green for the flower backgrounds. First I cut them up as appliques.

 My Happy Quilt which is on the cover of my 2014 wall calendar of quilts

I cut out those appliques for bold flowers.

Here they are both cut up and then scattered over the four corners.

I cut my panels up in a different way

 Yes, she became another cover girl (1 of 27 covers!)

I gifted this quilt to a friend when her mom died. Lasts longer than cut flowers!

So, with my newly re-discovered flowers with the black backgrounds, I was on a quest to combine some of the elements of both quilts. And, of course, I grabbed some bright batiks!

I started with my cut-out panels:

Two of the four colors of flowers

 I thought I would cut up the panels into four triangles.

Yes, I did. I cut these into fourths. I cut SEVERAL panels this way

I sewed them together with other colors. Sliced them before adding outside batik strips. . .

I added 2 rows of batiks, but just wasn't exciting enough. Lonely block, now a UFO

I abandoned this idea and went with another plan, but still intent on using those lush flowers as the center. Now it's time for the BATIKS!

Got out my trusty melon template (from my EZ Double Wedding Ring set)

 Fusible on wrong side of batiks. Cut out 8 of each color . . .

Aren't these beautiful batiks? From Sew Batik

This is the second color

I had some black batik with little etchings of white. I trimmed down my orange flower, added the black batik to all four sides and then used these melons as flower petals. I call this Flower Power. What do you think?

Power to the flowers!

20" x 20", just resting on a quilted throw pillow

Then I realized on Tuesday that there was nothing TWISTED in my project. Sure, those petals turned but no twisting was going on. So, I pulled out my TWISTED HEXAGON pattern and using the same center, some new batiks, and I got this:

Twisted Hexagon block with an 8" center (a very large 16" block)

 Then I made a mistake cutting out the rest of the half-hexagons and had to tweak a lot of things, but I still was able to make this Twisted Hexagon table runner (needs a border; have to go shopping!).

The black and white fabric is also a batik

Three large blocks make for a very long table runner

So, now I've twisted with the 60s, with batiks, and you got a few pics of yours truly almost 50 years ago!

Giveaway: A jelly roll (2-1/2" strips) of 20 batik fabrics from my stash. Contest is over October 3 at midnight.

Twenty 2-1/2" strips of batiks

What do you have to do? Leave a comment telling me what you remember about the 1960s. If you weren't born then, tell me what you've HEARD about the 60s! Doesn't have to be long.

NOW it's time to thank our Madame Samm of Sew We Quilt and Mary of I Piece 2 Mary for being our cheerleaders. We couldn't do this without them. And now it's also time to visit the other bloggers today:

Debby Kratovil Quilts (You are here)

Tea Time Creations
I like to Quiltblog

Secretly Stitching

Gingini's Crafts and Quilts

Sew Incredibly Crazy