Sunday, August 23, 2015

In The Middle

Wow, I realized I have not posted anything in over a month. I have been in the sewing room a lot the last few weeks, I am just in the middle of several different quilts. Aunt Green's Garden top is finished and I am working on machine quilting her.

Stonefield's is progressing.

I had to start a little hexagon flower factory so I would have some hand stitching to do in the evenings since Auntie Green's was my hand stitching project I usually did while watching TV.

I also have hand work with Patchwork of the Crosses. This is such a good camper project so I save it for our travels but I am working on the connector blocks now that I have the main crosses blocks finished.

I have joined a paper piecing club at a local quilt shop and PTOC is always packed and ready to go to club.

I also have been thinking about trying to make a simpler Hawaiian quilt that could be machine appliquéd. I had the idea if I could come up with a design that could come together as a four block appliqué I could blanket stitch appliqué it on my home machine.

I saw a layout something like this (center appliqué and wide white borders) at a local department store. So, I was successful, this very large quilt (102 X102) came together in just a couple weeks.

it is pinned and ready be quilted.

Since it is not enough to juggle my sewing time on these quilts I have started a new project. This is a BOM from Homesteadhearth.com of Kim Mc Lean's Mariners Compass. It started out as a huge challenge for me. I had to do a broderie perse appliqué from this fabric.

I really struggled with this, I am a "follow the pattern" girl. I felt stressed to get this right, it is the center, the focal center, of the whole quilt. Finally I just cut up all the flower and leaf motifs I could from the fabric. I started laying the pieces out like a jigsaw puzzle until I came up with a little something.

I swear I spent more time on this little 7 inch center than I did on the whole compass.

I need to just leave it alone at this point, I keep trying to tweak it a bit and add a sprig here or a leaf there.

I have been loving this time of year and all the great local farmers' markets. I have been making some jellies and my house smells so sweet with the food dehydrator working on some rhubarb and rhubarb fruit roll ups.

Happy stitching,

Cheri