I found a paper pieced beautiful block with a Canadian maple leaf on this blog -
http://christinacreating.blogspot.co...f-pattern.html
I had a friend request a quilt with an American and a Canadian flag for a new family member from Canada. I appliqued mine, but it was large enough to freemotion veining in the middle of the leaves. It turned out really nice, they were very pleased. I understand why you don't want to applique on yours, since it's an allover pattern and each square having to be individually done. But if you were to do just one, applique is not so tedious. Here's a pic of mine...
(Update - that's just too hilarious, we must have been searching at the same time and came up with the same site, lol)