Design Wall 9/5/11

Happy Labor Day!
     Up on my design wall is my practice block for back basting.  It's a little farther along than thursday and I'm feeling better about doing it by hand.  But those circles are still the biggest challenge on it. Must keep trying!
I hope to work some more on my ufos this week and keep playing with a block our guild's prez would like to be used in out BOM program.  We'll see.

What's on your design wall?  I'd love to see. Go over the Judy's Patchwork times (you'll find her button on my left sidebar) and share a link to yours and we'll all admire the eye candy(not that mine's eye candy - LOL). Thanks!

Stash Report 9/4/11

Four months left of stash busting.  Good thing I didn't set a goal  like a 100 yards for the year.  Judy has another challenge for us to work harder at this busting stash.  However, I think I'll be happy if each week I show I used something!  This week I made a charity quilt out of that 15" scrap square I made, picked a back for it and made another mug rug from a trial applique block, so there went 1.67 yards out of my stash - woohoo!
Used this week: 1.67 yards
Used/Donated Yr to date: 58.62 yards
Added this wk: 0.0 yards
Total Yr to date Added: -11.0 yards
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Total Yr to date Use: 47.62 yards

Go on over to Judy's Patchwork Times on my left sidebar and see how others are doing on their stashes. 

Applique Thursday 9/1/11

New block for me!  I've decided to learn the back basting method as per Kay Mackenzie's tutorial.  She does such beautiful work!  Go here if you'd like to see her post on this method of applique.  I really, really like how it ensures the pieces are right where they're suppose to be in the applique design.  And here is my piece I have started on. 

The larger leaves are basted. Only the small leaf, the stems and the cherries are actually appliqued.  Boy, it is slow going.  I 'm so glad I have those gold eye needles from John James right now!  I'll keep plugging away at it.  If you enlarge the photo by clicking on it, you can see the basting on the leaves.  Here's what the back looks like:

I'm going to finish this whole 14" square using this method, but I'm already itching to change things so I can possibly machine stitch it.  We'll see.

For great tips and beautiful photos of applique, do visit Kay's website at http://www.allaboutapplique.net/

Please share a link to your applique - it can be one you want to make, have already made, one you admire.  I loved last week's eye candy - thank you!  Hope to see more.