Applique Thursday 8/18/11

And the winner is, as per the True Random Number Generator:  Min: 1, Max: 21,  result: 20 .

And that is:  Erin!
                                 Vesuviusmama said... " I have been miserably unsuccessful at appliqué so far, but I've linked up just the same" on August 15, 2011 8:24 AM.

Congratulations, Erin!  Send me your snail mail address and I'll send the book along to you.

Thank you all of you who decided to play and share your applique efforts with me.  I just loved visiting all of you and seeing your beautiful work.  What eye candy.  And fyi:  I'll be having another giveaway real soon.

Now to what I've done.  I did make a block this week that had applique.  You can see it in my post tuesday, Aug. 15 and 16th.  And in the mail today, I got this!:

Just the kind of quilts I like!  Some piecing and some applique - woohoo!
So, I need another applique piece to work on in these coming days and found one in my stack of ufos

I started this years ago and was my first attempt at needle turn applique.  On examining now, it looks kind of juvenile to me and not sure I want to finish it.  Here's what it was suppose to look like:

What would you do?

WIP Wednesday 8/17/11

Here is the state of my cutting table on a block I am working on. 

The idea is to see what I can do with a stack of 10" squares.  I don't know where I'm going with this, if anywhere, just playing.

Off for a Ladies Day Out in a little while.  We're going to Yorba Regional Park (about 30 miles away) and take a walk, then on to the Irvine Museum of Art for a California Plein Aire Exhibit, and then a Thai restaurant for lunch.

Here's what I usually say when I head out on the road:
              St Michael, defend us in traffic.
              St Raphael, travel with us as we go.
              St  Uriel, light our way.
              St Gabriel, tells us what we need to know.

Click on WIP Wednesday by freshly pieced on my left sidebar and see what others are working on.

Fabric Tuesday, 8/16/11

I'm here to report on the good, the bad and the ugly - yes, all three.  First the good: 

I soaked this square in cold water and all the mark-be-gone blue marks came out - even though I had ironed over them in constructing the block.

Now the bad:  I foolishly trimmed the block before I soaked it and then hung it out on the clothesline in the hot sun to dry and the muslin shrunk!  It is no long 12 1/2" but 12 1/4" square (sort of).  Good thing I am adding sashing next and can compensate that way.

And lastly the ugly.  Remember I used that dissolvable applique sheet to get the lettering on the spine of my book block?  Well, I don't know what I was thinking.  Those sheets are compressed and formed of little fibers that break loose and thus dissolve in the water - but not if you stitch over them three times!  Then they're stuck to the black.  Arrrghhhhh!  Also I didn't read the directions carefully enough.  One is suppose to lightly press the fusible side to the fabric - press it for 5 seconds and it sticks like cement.  Remember here this product is suppose to be on the back side, so wouldn't cause these problems necessarily.  But I've washed this three times in warm water - each time a few more fibers came off.  I even used Goo Gone before the third wash/soak and still some of those pesky fibers were all over the place.  My husband loaned me some very fine tweezers and with the aid of a poweful magnifier, I was able to get some more off.  Then I took a black ball point and made the letter stand out a little more.  All I can do.  I'm not doing it over!  Will just have to be a dusty book in the quilt when I put these blocks together.  So here is the book block completed:

Please visit Fabric Tuesday by Quilt Story to see others' work and their progress.  You'll find the button on my left sidebar.