Guila Greer from my art quilt group (extremequilters.com) told us about a worldwide project to create 12” square quilt blocks for charity quilts.  The blocks are being shipped to Australia, where they will be assembled into quilts for families in Australia who have lost their homes in the wildfires. 

The modern quilt guilds organizing the project asked only that the backgrounds be light and that the blocks have a tree theme.

With only a few days to get the blocks in the mail before the Feb 15 deadline, I used pre-fused fabric scraps and circle shapes I had bought at Jamie Fingal’s studio sale last year to make the first set of four “crazy palm tree” blocks.

For the second set of four blocks, I literally traced leaves from trees around my yard and neighborhood, still using Jamie’s pre-fused batik and print scraps to make life size Heavenly Bamboo, Eucalyptus and Oak leaves. 

Not finding any other flat leaves that would fit in a 12-inch square for block #4, I chopped off a frond of the potted palm in my living room and made the last piece from that. 

By then, all the big pieces of Jamie’s fabric were gone so I had to break into my own supply of batiks.