3/4s of the way through Feb and I’ve not got very far on my UFOs but thriving on two new desighns LOL. Every now and then a design will pull you in and you stop doing every thing else to do them?! But the last two years 5 of Esther Aliu designs have pulled me in LOL. This year the centre of Morning Glory tugged at my heart strings, then the centre of Queens Garden, I thought I’ll just make the centre of QG but here I am not able to stop working on it, I go to sleep thinking about and I wake up and go straight to the design table to look at the next block??!, As a moderator we have access to the full pattern and Jenny and I are both working on it and not able to stop LOL. This week I have only been working on QG, and adding more tiny cherries to Morning Glory Centre.
I’m using a bolt of Kimono fabric for my backing but it is only just over 15 inchs wide so had to come up with a plan to make my centre square larger? I ended up using a yellow spacer. None of this is sewn down the first border is just lying against my centre.
all waiting to be ironed down.
I used two rulers to get a perfect1/4 inch either side of my petals befor eironing them down.
All ironed down waiting to be machine appliquéd down.
How I make my black back ground fabric, I slice through my template fold one side abck and mark with a fine chalk pen, then retape the template and do another stem the same way till they are all marked.
Same thing, I find this a quick and easy way to mark simple designs like this.
you can see the lines here, they brush off easy.
stems ironed down
leaves added
Making up the flowers on my teflon sheet. Id be lost with out it, it saves me so much time and you can see the pattern so clearly under it.
Flowers not ironed down will add these after I have machine appliquéd down the stems and flowers.
I couldn’t stop there and started another block?
I’m going to try and not use just pink tones in this quilt!!!! I like them so much I keep pulling them. Going to try a blue block?
SO far so good LOL.
Close up of the centre flower. I have added a piece of blue silk to the dark blue centre petal as it was to dark!
I’m happy with that!
what a difference a few wee dots make? Nothing is ironed down except the stems.
Machine appliquéd the stems down first.
Close up, right hand sid eof the stems are red and the left yellow it gives a round look to the stems I think????? Plus gives more light to the centre of the block.
Adding my first flower.
Fabric I used for the flowers was some light weight upholstery fabric but it was not a good choice it frayed even with the irononfussing, to over come this problem I machine appliquéd it down twice to get rid of the fuzzy edges!
finally finished the big flower head but had to machine appliqué the other two flowers twice also.
Its turned out to be so pretty in blue, well I like it LOL
All completed except to applqiue the wee dots down.
Last night I cut out the main flower for another block and this morning found some fabric for the stems?!
Using some kimono fabric for this block, this is from the same fabric just fussy cut one circle from the green part and a yellow one from the yellow area.
Using silk fabric from the blouse I never wear???? for the stems
Have finished this block and another ready to machine appliqué but will show you those next week! Just a small peek at the next one tooLOL
Start of the last block of 4
No garden photos there were to many Mosquitos today to wander around taking photos will. Take some early tomorrow may be and add them.
Off to link with Esther on her WOW or WIp’s.
Thanks for visiting and leaving your own blog so I can visit you. Cheers Glenda
love your flower block. it is so pretty. love seeing how you work on it also. is kimono fabric the same as cotton fabric or something different? I take it this is another from your endless stash!
Hi Karen, every time I see your name at present I see your bird blocks they are so cute, but I’m sure you are birded out after so many LOL Kimono fabric can be any kind of fabric from Linen, cotton, silk, ramme, seafgrass, endless, fibres but they were all ways natural, woven on a loom that made only 14 1/2 inch wide cloth and it was usually 13 metres long, this was enough fabric to make up a Japanese gown, they still make it the same width and the same length. SO if I unpick and Japanese Kimono gown I end up with close to 13 metres of fabric but its only 14 1/2 inches wide.I have collected fabric from Japan for close on 30 years. Cheers till next week!
February is a short month but you seem to have gotten a lot done. The flowers are beautiful with their bright colors
My days, and hours are not long enough for me Kyle LOL I have so much I want to do like every other quilter I should of started 20 years earlier than I did !!!!!!Thanks for dropping in. Cheers Glenda
I am not sure what “Kimono” fabric is but you always have so much going on and this was very interesting! 🙂 And beautiful!
If you ever want to escape your bugs in the garden at this time of the year and come over here we in the USA cannot predict what weather you’ll encounter here lol.
In the last week I think I’ve seen ice, snow, sleet, rain, major flooding, a record setting 77 degree day, and now back to lower temps. But sure, according to our moronic president there is no such thing as climate change.
Hi Deb, LOL. May be we should swap homes for a while and we would be happy with our lot LOL. Kimono fabric is sold by the roll. Roughly 13 metres by 14 1/2 inches wide. That is enough to make up a Japanese Kimono gown. I have collected Japanese fabric for many many years. So if the block is 16 1/2 inches I have to solve how to make it 16 1/2 inches with out having a seam down the middle of the block? Just starting to appliqué down another block for Queens Garden but life keeps stopping me, last one was my wee dog, it’s out wet season so it’s very very wet out side lots of fleas and ticks so I keep her inside, I did not even realise she was out, she just came rushing in with a big grin on her face which quickly disappeared when she saw the look on my face, she was covered with brown clay dust all over her!!! Hubby had left the entrance open under the house and she has been trying to catch the skinks living under there but this time of the year fleas love it too. So it was into the shower and 30 mins later a clean wee dog and hopefully no fleas! Cheers Glenda who is going to try and sew!
I love it when a quilt pattern becomes all consuming, and, like you, go to bed and wake up thinking about it!
You have achieved a lot this week – with fabulous results! Very interesting to see how you mark on dark fabric – I hadn’t really considered doing that with the paper pattern. I can see that it works well for you. Thanks for sharing! xx
Your Queens Garden block looks so lovely. The machine applique is turning out very nicely, sure is a lot faster than hand applique. Happy stitching!
Hi Gretchen, I’ve spent most of my sewing time this week on Queens Garden, I have made up the 4 blocks that go around the centre and just love them, I’m sure getting plenty of practice doing machine applqiue in a big way. I do miss the hand applqiue but my hands are so slow now and can not work for long, thats life creeping up on me LOL Hugs Glenda
Glenda, I just learned so much reading through your post twice! I’m being swept away by Esther’s QG pattern. Myself, I have not started, but the pictures being posted are stunning! And having never seriously experimented with applique, I have so many things to think about. One question only: I know what Esther recommends for iron on, but what is your choice or do you use different things for different fabrics? I see you use such a variety of weights. I’m such a newbie.
Hi Julie so nice to hear from you and glad that you picked up some ideas from my blog. Down in Australia we are very limited in what we can buy compared to USA and up here in the Far North of it theres even less, I buy whats available its a no name brand it just comes on rolls and some times its NOT good, it keeps lifting which is so frustrating as you have to keep pressing and thats not good for the fabric and the glue starts to break down, so if I buy some and it works really well for me I go back the next day and buy 6 or 7 metres of it LOL I steer away from any heavy fussing ( its easier to use BUY ) it so hard on the machine needles, they get gunky and the threads keep breaking and this can all most make you want to give up applqiue so watch out for those, the light weight ones I use are like cobwebs all most, store rolled don’t fold it as it will break up and be hard to use. Think thats a enough for one day LOL If you want to ask a question you can PM me any time Cheers Glenda