Star of Hope with Persistent Kudzu and Pineapple

I laughed at this block so much...if you've lived anywhere in the South for any length of time, you're well acquainted with a little plant we have around here called Kudzu.  Kudzu is amazing.  Give the vine an inch and it will take a mile....or two...or three acres with it!

And the oddest thing about this plant?  It's not even native to us.  Nope.  Nada.  It came from Asia.  Some American botanist (whose name has been forgotten -- which is a good thing, some of us would cheerfully strangle him with a Kudzu vine), was studying in that region and came across Kudzu.  He decided it would work great in the South to prevent soil erosion.  So he happily came back home with Kudzu seeds (while masses of Asians were snickering behind his back). 

Well, the vine grew alright.  And grew....and grew...like a bad dream Jack-in-the-Beanstalk.  It's taken over fields and abandoned cars and old houses and probably an elderly person or two who couldn't outrun it.  On a hot summer's night, Kudzu can grow as much as six inches.  The only product I've seen made from it was Kudzu jelly and I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole.  It's a pity we can' t find someway to run automobiles off the stuff, because the south would become the answer to America's Middle East dependence on oil.  Honestly -- the only thing I have seen control the vine is goats.  Goats will eat the plant as fast as it can grow.  But if you live in the country club area, it's hard to explain a herd of goats to your HOA.

Anyway, this is a fun, fast, and easy block.  One piece of applique, and even that's not so small and curvy that it would drive you nuts.  Again, piece your block before you applique.  And remember to be as persistent as a Kudzu plant in getting this quilt finished.

The Pineapple block is the third whole-cloth applique block in the Southern Album Quilt. Once more, please...if you don't take to heart anything in this blog but this, heed it well:  This quilt is applique heavy.  Please for the love of God and your sanity, work on the four whole cloth applique blocks while you're piecing the others.  Also remember that the whole cloth blocks are going to be 14 inches square when you're working on them.  You will trim them down to 12 1/2 inches before you sew the squares together. And when you get the whole cloth blocks done, start on the center medallion.  There are 44 circles in that sucker and while the results are beautiful, it is labor intensive.

I love pineapples....to eat, put in cakes, make sorbet out of, throw on top of banana splits....pineapples are awesome.  And in the south, from Williamsburg, Virginia to Duluth, Mississippi, the pineapple is a symbol of hospitality.  The fruit begins to show up on flags and wreaths here around Thanksgiving and sticks around until we start putting the Easter bunnies out.  I still have my stately black flag with the pineapple and fruit on it hanging from the side of the house from Thanksgiving.  It's a beautiful, colorful, welcoming thing...or so I thought until my twenty-something year-old daughter told me that now the pineapple the logo of swingers.

Oy-vey.  They have messed up a wonderful fruit with a wonderful meaning.  How dare they....