It's Applique Wednesday

because yesterday I was all day at the beach with the grandkids.  Poor #1 was sick, so he basically dipped his toes in the water and took a nap under the umbrella.  #4 walked up the rise, took one look at the ocean and said "Wow!"  It was his first time.  Every time I said "let's go now", he begged to stay longer.  Finally, on the way home, I asked if he wanted to go to the beach again.  He said, "no".  LOL - that's the way it is with 3 yr olds.

The past week was busy with other projects and soccer (see previous post), so today I'd like to bring to your attention:

This is one of my favorite combo's = scrappy backgrounds and applique flowers.  Go here  to learn all about it.  It started in April, but you can get the two blocks at her Craftsy store for just $1.50 each.  The blocks are 12" square.  Enjoy!

Design Wall Monday 6/23/14

Coming off the design wall:

 Mom asked me to quilt this lap quilt for her.  She did everything but the quilting.  I was hesitant at first because she had already  bound it. But she had SITD around the blocks and just inside the yellow French knots.  That seemed to stabilize these large blocks enough that I had no pleating as I quilted it.  I used Bottom Line Silver on both top and bottom with a 80/12 needle and the tension set at 2 for my Bernina.

 Here's four of the six.

and a close-up of one of the ladies.

Here's the back - she used a purple flannel that matches the sashing and borders on the front side.  Now to bury all those tails.

Still on my design wall is my Soupçon.  I was able to add the two borders of Part 6 and have begun the paper piecing third border of this last part.  These will take me a while.  I figure I have 9 hours left on the other three sides.  My PP section was 3/8th shorter than my top.  So first I squared the top again (one side was off) and took out the papers in the center of the PP strip.  I was able to gently stretch the strip to get it to fit.  If I hadn't removed some of those central papers, I was afraid I'd have some gathering in that blue print border. Phew.

I'm linking to Judy's Patchwork Times and Marelize's Anything Goes Monday.  Now back to the exciting World Cup games!!

Hexie Weekend 6/20/14

I've been prepping hexie stars as I watch the World Cup.  It hasn't been as productive as I envisioned because so many of the games have been outstanding and surprising.  But what did I expect when the best players of the game have gathered together to go for the Golden Ball.  It has been exhilarating to see them play so well and for 95% of them so sportsmanlike - a far difference from 1998 when I watch my first one and 2010 when the refereeing was awful.  But enough of that - back to hexies. I did manage to prep seven more stars and finish sewing the one I had started.

I was going to mainly use 30s fabrics for these stars but my stash has a mind of its own and its turning out brighter than the first ones.  I did find that the centers I chose are of more contrast to the petals. Not wanting the stitches to show I decided to try invisible thread to sew them together.

I used Superior Invisible Thread in the smoke color and worked over a piece of white paper.  The hardest part was tying the knot at the needle to keep the thread from slipping out of the hole.  I also learned I needed to work with shorter lengths of thread - about 12-14" instead of the 18" I'm use to - to keep from wrapping the thread around a side of the hexagon and not noticing it because of the invisibility of the thread - lol.  What do you think?

I'm linking to Richard's Link a Finish Friday because I did finish one star and also to Can I get a Whoop, Whoop for trying a new technique.  I'd love to see your eye candy - hexie or otherwise; photo link or blog post will do.  Linky below. Remember it can be old eye candy - if it's new to me, it qualifies.

An InLinkz Link-up