Design Wall Monday 9/26/11

I'm posting this early as I'm off to Duarte again to babysit Lily.  Thank you for your prayers for Barbara. They moved her from Intensive Care to Critical Care, so that's good. 

Besides my coverlet, I now have my Fallen Dishes on my design wall.  The workshop was saturday, but I couldn't go with all the catch-up I had to do last week.  I did go pick up the kit and saw a lot of lovely table toppers being assembled.  I've finished the flimsey.  Now I'll have to take some time and think of what to do to it next.  The flower is raw edge applique; ditto the leaf.  The stem is sewn then flipped.  What do you think?  Not sure I'm happy with the border - thought the print might do as there is so much tan/brown in the squares.  Maybe it will grow on me. 

Go on over to my left sidebar and click on Judy's Patchwork Times button.  You'll find a lot of inspiration on those quilters' design walls.

Stash Report 9/25/11

I've been at it again, rummaging through my stash, finding pieces that no longer call to me or I know I"ll never use.  I've also found a few that I've put together as pieces I'll use to make a quilt - I don't know what yet, but I like them together.  Here's what they look like - a mostly green palette - maybe I'll make a green quilt.

So that is a plus.  I also found some bits and pieces I've added to my crumb block scrap pile.  Ahem, just what I needed - LOL. 

And speaking of crumbs - I probably used a fat quarter to make 8 more blocks.  Then I bought a fat quarter at our guild mtg.  But I promptly used it to add a border to our Fallen Dishes Mini Quilt.  And from the stash, I found six yards to donate away at the next meeting.  Here are my numbers for the week:

Used/Donated this week: 6.5 yards

Used/Donated Yr to date: 81.25 yards
Added this wk: 0.25 yards
Total Yr to date Added: -12 yards
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Total Yr to date Used: 69.25 yards

How's your destashing coming along?  You can see how others are doing at Judy's Patchwork Times.

Crumb Along #3

Finally made some star crumbs, or is that crumby stars? Surprisingly they were harder to make than I thought. And then I read Jo's post again and went to see Bonnie's Maverick stars and then the next star went together much easier. Must say it is hard to turn off the "must get it to match gene" than I thought. Here they are:

Now I need to make two heart blocks.

How are you doing with your crumbs?  Visit Jo at Jo's Country Junction to see others' stars.

Applique Thursday 9/22/11

Working on another shop hop block.  I thought I'd show you how I learned to put together an applique as taught to us by Zena Thorpe at a workshop.  Here is the photo of the block I'll be doing. 

The first thing I do is make 2 copies of the pattern.  The first one, I cut out the main pieces carefully and leave an outline of my owl intact on the page.  That's the sheet on the left.  On the right I took the main motif I cut out and cut it into the individual pieces.  It looks assembled but they are all in pieces.  From the second copy I cut out the pieces that are on top of others.  The second head is necessary so that I can align the eyes.  I also cut out the leaves from the second block as well as the tree trunk.  There's a slit on the sheet you can't see where I cut with scissors to get to the owl.  I'll scotch tape it so that I can use the sheet on my block to center the owl and position the pieces.
Next will come tracing the pieces onto the paper side of the steam a seam to make the raw edge applique.  Oh, yes, I'll have to turn the pieces to the wrong side so that they come out oriented correctly.  Once the pieces are done, I'll show you a picture of the pieces inside the outline.  This will be machine appliqued.

Working on an applique?  Finished one?  Sure would love to see it.  I enjoy the eye candy you post!