Applique Tuesday 7/9/13

Thank you, Billie, for reminding me it's my day to post about applique.  I've just come back from babysitting for 8 hours and I'm sort of wiped out (there was swimming, bike riding, baseball and dinner plus general play with a 2 year-old).  But sure I just need a good night's sleep, and I'll be back to my go self.  I did do some applique this past week.  I hand appliqued the center of my compass (see last post) and I machine appliqued these diamond shapes on this charity quilt:

This will be another VA charity lap quilt and measures 36" by 45". This design is a widely adapted one of Ivory Spring's Watercolor Sketches.  I resized the blocks, removed the sashing, and took off the borders and added the striped design at the top.  Do you think that is changed enough?  Can see this with fussy cut centers.  I'm calling it Old Glory for the stripes and the star design that was generated from the placement of the blocks.  I'll show another version later that was easier than this to make.  I'm going to keep this design handy.

Are you appliqueing?  Have some old, new or completed project you could share? Doesn't even have to be applique - would love to see whatever you're working on.  Linky below.



And I'm linking to Connie's Free Motion Quilting by the River. Check out the goodies there, too.

Stash Report and FMQ

Okay - some progress to report on two fronts.  First, I used a yard to back my carpenter star.  I used another yard to back my VA quilt.  Then I finished making those nine-patchers and cut up anothe 1.5 yards. Then I used a fat eighth of green for my Jacob's Ladder block for a total of 3.75 yards used this past week.
Here are my numbers: 
Used/Donated last week: 3.75 yards
Used/Donated YTD: 70.98 yards
Added/Bought last week: 0.0 yards
Added/Bought YTD: 27.5 yards
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Net Decrease YTD: 43.48 yards  Little more than 6 1/2 yards for me to meet my half year goal.  Yeah!
 
The second progress front was in my Learning to do Feathers by FMQ.  I'm half way done quilting my carpenter star as per Judy's fine instructions for FMQ feathers.  I first practiced on paper.  And for the life of me I couldn't get the left side of the feathers to look as they should.  So I decided to try them on the quilt top using freezer paper.  I found a feather I liked in Quiltmakers Quilt Motifs vol. 1 and traced it on the FP.  Then, since I could do the right side of the feather, I used only one side of the motif.  I ironed them on the diamond shape and off I went.  Don't look at my first ones, but by the 4th I was feeling better about them, and the last two came out okay. One of my problems was I kept getting loops in the top thread.  I changed the needle twice, rethreaded the thread, checked tension, checked bobbin - pulling my hair out!  Turns out it was the thread!  On to the feather wreaths - back to training wheels and used FP.  In keeping with the spirit of the lessons in FMQ, I decided to do the centers as fmq - first two - awful; last two - pretty good if I say so myself.

I've decided I'm not going to take all the loops out.  This will be a wall hanging and essentially it is a practice piece and I'm just learning to quilt this way, so it stays to remind me of what problems I can have.  Hey, it'll look a bit hairy on my wall.

Here's the back.

This patch is not black.  It is such a dark purple, my puny camera couldn't tell the difference.  One of my better feathers.  Phew now to finish it.
 
I'm linking to Judy's Stash report at http://www.patchworktimes.com/.  Go on over and see how others are doing on their stash.