I've picked up my stitching again, and one of my "stitching goals" for 2011 is to wrap up the State Flower Quilt project by the end of spring or early summer. But with about 30 blocks to go--I'm going to have to step it up a bit-- so next here we have #19: the Hawaiin Hibiscus.
The Hibiscus is probably most associated with Hawaii, but I saw these tropical flowers everywhere growing up in southern California, and they can be found in other regions where the climate is warm and humid. The colorful blooms are big, bold, and beautiful, but interestingly, their glory is short-lived as they tend to shrivel almost to nothing and drop off after one day. I know. Sad isn't it?
It's believed that there are only five species of Hibiscus that originated from Hawaii, and that others came from various Pacific Islands. The yellow hibiscus (brackenridgei), also called, "pua aloalo", is original to Hawaii though and was adopted as the official Territorial Flower in the 1920's before becoming a State in 1959. In 1988 yellow was the color officially defined as representative of the State--before that, and when this State Flower Quilt pattern was originally printed sometime in the 1960's-70's, any flower color was generally accepted, which is why the original directions call for a "terra cotta" colored flower. I colored mine "sunny yellow" reflecting the current choice and added a bit of bright red in the center to define it.
DMC Colors: Are your choice as always; I used #307 for petals; #743 for center; leaves #470, and #645 for lettering.
NOTE: I often get requests for information about this project, so I made a new page for quick reference with all the links gathered into one place--so you no longer have to search the archives to find them. The link to the new page is accessible in the right sidebar and will contain all the info needed to download the patterns and other things, so I won't be repeating it all here anymore with each new addition. Whew!
