Made for my husband, Paul, for his 39th birthday. Purple Coneflowers do really well in our garden, especially out front where the sun can be brutal. I based this quilt on a close-up photograph I took this past summer, and it was my first experiment with making a quick and small art quilt without alot of planning. I decided to make this the day before his birthday. I quickly sketched out the design but realized when I started cutting fabrics that deciding which petal should be which shade of fabric was too time-consuming, so I just grabbed some large pieces of Wonder Under fusible web and ironed them to the fabrics, then started cutting petals out randomly, looking for striped areas of fabric and areas with lights and darks (the photo here doesn't show them as well as "in person"). The center "cones" worked out really well using some of Nancy Crow's fabric. All I had to do was quilt some concentric circles over them to give them more depth.

This was also my first experiment with using some funky fabrics for the borders, as well as trying to mount the piece on foamcore. I gave up on the foamcore so after quilting the piece, I attached another piece of backing to the back like a pillowcase, inserted a piece of acid-free matboard, then slipstitched the bottom shut. Now the piece can sit on a small easel without having to be hung.