Cuz I'm a Sunflower from the Sunflower State!

I've had that song stuck in my head for days and days and days, and it's all Gwen Marston's fault.  Well, the Gwennie Medallion QAL, actually, not Gwen herself.

After we all made basket blocks for our starters, the second prompt was 'childhood'.  It took me a while to come up with an idea.  Childhood?  Hmm...  Bikes.  Those endless summer days with flipflops and picnics.  School.  Nothing really grabbed me or even offered much traction.
Then I thought about my childhood in Kansas.  Just like the song says:

I was born in Kansas, I was bred in Kansas
and when I get married, I'll be wed in Kansas.

(Well, not that last part.)

But you can't hardly swing a cat in Kansas without whacking a sunflower.  Besides the real ones growing everywhere, there are sunflowers stuck on everything big enough to carry a logo.
Sunflowers.  Now there was something I could work with.
But which approach should I take?  I hadn't brought much for yellow (just two really light fat quarters) and no golds at all.  Not even much for orange, believe it or not.
I tried a non-traditional sunflower, to mixed reviews.

Stash enhancement was absolutely vital.  What a shame, right?
So I made test blocks with different stars and flowers, questing for just the right sunflowery look.

I even tried foundation paper piecing.

I ended up with an abundance of blocks, but no clear winner.

On the other hand, I ended up with a whole field of sunflowers, so I just decided to use them all.  There were 5" blocks, 6" blocks, a 7.5" block, and even one that was 4"x8".  It gave me a run for my money.

I love it.
A lot of the assembly process went completely against the grain for me.  I like all my seams precise and lots of measuring and matchy-matchy.
I didn't work that way for this.  It wasn't easy, but I did it.
I estimated stuff and sewed it on.  If it was too long, I chopped it off.

If it was too short, I sewed on another piece of something.
I decided to ignore any crunched points or wonky seams.
This view of the bottom corner shows the clusterfluffle of partial seams I ran into.  I'm still amazed it all fit together in the end.

It was very freeing, actually.  I may do it again sometime.  After I go lie down for awhile.

In other news, I also finished the 'childhood' round for my applique basket block.  One of my treasured childhood memories is spending time at my grandparents' farm.  They always had chickens, ducks, and geese, along with the occasional cow.  I liked the cows and the chickens well enough, and I loved the ducks, but the geese were not my friends.
As a matter of fact, the geese hated little kids.  Like me, for instance.  They delighted in escaping from their pen and attacking every little kid in sight.  Like me, for instance.  Many's the time I ran for the house yelling "Grandma!  Grandma!  Help!" as a goose chased me through the farmyard, beating me with its wings and biting the backs of my legs and my butt.  By the end of summer, I was usually carrying quite a collection of black and blues.
So, to commemorate those ghastly creatures, such a part of my childhood, I made flying geese to go chasing around the medallion.

Or rather, a bunch of biting geese chasing around the border.   (And I gotta tell you, nothing ever tasted better than the roast goose Grandma would serve for Easter dinner...)

So here's my two medallions, ready for the next chapter.

Next up is log cabins.  I can do that.  Log cabins surely won't bite me on the ass, right?

Linking to all the Gwennie fun.  Come see!