A Fun Way to Applique-- And a Giveaway!

 I heard from Eric at Fons and Porter the other day about a new way - well, new way to me anyway - to learn about our quilting craft - Daily Craft TV.  Like Craftsy, The Quilt Show, and QNN, they offer class videos about quilting and crafting.  Many of these are taught by experts from leading craft magazines.  Now I can learn from books and photos, but I do a lot better with something new if I can watch someone and work along with them.  Watching a teaching video helps as it's the next best thing to being in an actual workshop or class. So when Eric offered to give me a free class to review - I jumped at the chance - especially as there were 37 quilting classes to choose from - and that was only for quilting - lots more for sewing, knitting, crocheting, scrapbooking and  papercraft.  And they were quite inexpensive compare to the other competition.

I wanted to learn a new applique technique, so I picked "Make an Applique Portrait of your Pet from a Photograph".  Here's the brief video summary of the class. PS: Takes a moment to come up.

How to make an appliqué from a portrait of your pet. - Daily Craft TV

I enjoyed the class and as Jodie said - it is easy and fun to make a fusible pet portrait.  What I found most interesting is Jodie made the process easy and without having to buy any special tools to make this portrait.  Also, she encourages one to use what is in our stash to make these quick quilts - I liked how she used prints to give the pets character and still be true to the photos.  I would have liked Jodie to have shown some photos that would not have worked for this project so we don't get in over our heads with pieces and also a little more on thread painting (To me, this part was sketchy, needed more on thread, etc), but overall this would be a class I would recommend to people who would like to try this method.  Her examples were fabulous!

I decided to review a class with you in mind, readers, For in doing so I get to give away one of  Daily Craft TV's offering - your choice.  To win this free class, please go to http://www.dailycrafttv.com/ and look around the website - then click on the tab of your favorite craft  and review their offerings.  Come back to my blog and tell me which class you'd like to take in a comment.  I'll pick a winner next Monday about this time.

Hexie Friday and FMQ

Some hexie progress made during my long weekend with the Grands.  At least I finished the inner circle of hexies.

It's suppose to be hot this week, so I might get a lot more done as I sit in the living room staying cool.

And I've been doing some FMQ on that mod Flower Baskets charity quilt.  I sort of followed the design of the basket insides, but decided I wanted to do something different than meandering around the baskets.  I have this phobia of marking my quilt tops, so I came up with a geometric template that I cut out of freezer paper. A little more time consuming  - have to stop after stitching each one and move the pattern to the next intersection.  It is doable as I am using my home sewing machine.

I then iron it in place on the quilt top and stitch around the freezer paper. 

It is HARD doing those lines - just as I find SITD hard, too.  It got better with each one.
Here's how it looks after stitching - not perfect but a way lot better if I didn't use the paper:

So that's my hexies and FMQ for today.  What are you up to?  Would love to see your hexies or other project progress, too!  Linky below.

I'm linking also to Billie's Hexie Friday post, Amanda Jean's Finish it Friday and Leah's FMQ Friday. Visit and see more luscious eye candy.

Applique Tuesday

I'm quilting my applique charity quilt - hope that counts for working on applique.  I first thought about quilting each block in a circular design:

Well that didn't work as FMQ for me - here I'm taking the stitches out.  How do you do spirals and make them come out even?  Is there a stencil like for Baptist fans?  I then decided to FMQ as basket and flowers:

I liked that better, so that's what I'll do for the 8 other flower baskets.  I'll think about the white area later.   I have made some of the applique pieces for LE, but they're too tiny to look like much at this time. Hope to find time for more. All the GKs start school next week, so I should have more time.

Had a fun time with them last weekend.  Aren't they sweet.  Frank is 9 and Lily is 3.

Would love to see your eye candy - applique or otherwise. Linky below.