A New Beginning and a New Beginning

Happy New Year!

I am starting my new year with two new appliqué projects. The first is Auntie Green's Garden, pattern by Irene Blanck.

This is my first block of the month that I have purchased the fabric from a store (homestead hearth.com). It is quite fun getting the fabric packet in the mail. Each fabric is labeled and cut into small blocks just perfect for an appliquér who back bastes. Other than the challenge of wrangling this huge pattern (the center section is about 50 X50 inches) and my fabric around to get it traced onto the back of my background fabric

I was stitching in a very short time.

My second new project is the Benjamen Biggs wedding quilt.

The patterns for this 1848 red and green album quilt are a free block of the month over the next two years by Gay from sentimentalstitches.net and Brenda from dearjane.com. This is their third year doing free block of the months under their Just Takes Two (see the button on the sidebar) BOM. The patterns are available for one month and after that available for purchase. There is lots of interesting reading about the history of the Benjamin Biggs family and each block, so even if you do not applique pop over and read about this wonderful quilt.

I love red and green quilts but I am playing around with doing this one in greens and yellows. It is a large quilt, 100 X 100 inches and this would fit nicely on my king size bed eventually, and green and yellow would match my existing decor in my bedroom. So far, I have just been pulling fabrics, there is a little touch of blue in the center block of this quilt, doesn't this blue paisley fit in nicely with these?

Over the last month I have been keeping up with my two cross stitch samplers. The peacocks are finished on And They Sinned and I am onto the next band.

 

And little Freelove Hazard is getting closer and closer to completion.

I have bonded with this little girl, I love the way she added her numbers, sort of - there is no number 5 - at the end of different alphabet rows. And in true Freelove fashion I omitted the letter D in the first row by accident, but I am just going to leave it. (The letter J was not included in the old sampler alphabets, so that omission is supposed to be there.)

I am going to have to make myself put down the hand appliqué and spend some time on the samplers in the coming months, but variety is the spice of life, and definitely of quilters and stitchers.

 

Happy Stitctching All,

Cheri

 

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Ho, Ho, Ho

My father had eleven brothers and sisters, some of my best Christmas memories was renting the local grade school gym and having a huge Christmas dinner. I had over fifty first cousins and my Grandpa would give each of us a paper lunch sack of Brach's pick-a-mix candy and an apple or orange. I love making gift bags out of paper lunch sacks and appliqué fabric motiffs. This year our Christmas stockings are going to be these bags. I use appliqué paper (Heat and Bond) and just iron the fabric motiff right onto the paper bags, quick and easy.

I have also finished another two Roseville Album blocks, six completed so far.

I had a little mishap with my And They Sinned sampler, I lost the thread key on a recent trip. Marty, at Stitch and Frog ( online cross stitch store) where I ordered the pattern and threads, went above and beyond getting permission from the pattern designer to make a copy of the thread key and save me from purchasing another pattern. I am working on the peacocks, I love this blue thread by GAST threads which just happened to be named "peacock".

I wish you all a very Merry and Blessed Christmas,

Cheri

 

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Block Play

My burnout on quilting seems to be continuing. I just can't seem to get interested in anything. I have been in the sewing room putzing around with a few things. I drew out an appliqué willow tree block and made a couple of those.

I have also always liked a red and white school house block quilt, but the Y seam piecing was just not appealing. So I played around with making an appliqué school house block.

Still not interested in making a whole quilt out of either of these.

I have been working on the Freelove Hazard sampler, but cross stitches over one thread on 25 count linen can only be done for short amounts of time.

I was looking through some blogs and came upon Patchwork of the Crosses blocks. This quilt is by English novelist Lucy Boston. It is done with English paper piecing. I drafted a 90 degree hexagon and started playing around.

These blocks have endless possibilities and are enhanced with fussy cutting.

This fabric was in a group of 6 inch blocks that I won in a give away by Kathie H over at Inspired By Antique Quilts.

I don't know that I have the fabric stash to pull off this quilt, but it has been fun to play with. Maybe this will be the one to get me back in the quilting mood.

Happy Stitching,

Cheri

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Working On An Old Friend

I pulled out Roseville Album the other day and actually finished another block. I am machine appliquéing this quilt and I have all the center blocks assembled and just need to sit at the machine and work on them. I noticed the pattern came out in 2009, yikes, I can't believe I have had it this long. Too many great quilts and not enough time. Here are the four blocks I have done so far.

 

Happy Stitching,

Cheri

 

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Multitasking Stitching

Multitasking stitching, that is probably improper English but that is what I feel like I am doing, trying to keep all of my hand stitching projects progressing. It seems like all of the projects I am drawn to are all hand work. I spent a lot of time on my next Baltimore album block, a bias basket. It was the first one I have ever attempted. It really did not go very well. I glued all the bias strips down, it was very hard to keep them aligned with the pattern, but after stitching it down for a week I had it finished and decide to gently wash it before I proceeded with filling the basket with appliqué flowers. The red dye bled all around the block, I had prewashed the fabric until it rinsed clean, and still it bled-frustrating! And so the washing of the block began. At first I really wanted to try and salvedge the block, but eventually I decided the basket was just not quite right and I would never be happy with it. There was no more of the background fabric however, and I REALLY wanted to save it, so I carefully removed the basket and washed the fabric some more. I eventually got all if the pink out of the background and you will never believe what finally got it out...Dawn dishwashing soap. I had tried everything and the commercial about the ducks that had been in an oil spill being cleaned with Dawn dishwashing soap came on TV. I had some and thought why not try it, and it worked!
Anyway, a week wasted on that block, I decided to go to a different block, a berry wreath block. I have had a ten inch square of this rather strange dark green and orange reproduction fabric for quite a while. I could never find a place for it in the Civil War Bride quilt, but I really like it for these leaves.

I am back basting this block and I will finish the leaves and wreath and then start the 76 berries. SEVENTY SIX berries, on one 14 inch block!

The word that comes to mind is "Endurance", and I think of my sister who just ran a half marathon,

and how unfair it is that my hobby that involves endurance does not burn as many calories as hers- good job by the way Sis.
On to the next hand stitching project, I am starting a new reproduction sampler. This one is a Scarlet Letter project and I just love this little gal because if her name, Freelove Hazard.

She was 10 years old when she stitched her sampler in 1792. I am stitching it on a 25 count linen that I put in a tea dye to make the fabric look older. I really like the way it turned out, kind of blotchy...and I tested it with a final wash in the Dawn dish washing liquid to make sure this color would not wash out, cotton is an amazingly tough fabric.
Well this is an unusually long post for me, but the third hand stitching project I am juggling is, And They Sinned. This sampler is long, I was recently changing stitching frames and took this picture of it on my ironing board.

Here is a close up, I am to the one third completed point.

So my stitching plan is Baltimore album blocks on my weekdays that I am off work when I can get into the sewing room and do some prep work. And they Sinned on week nights, and Freelove is going to be my Sunday stitching project while I am watching Peyton Manning stomp all over the rest of the NFL football teams. (I have been a Denver Broncoes fan for years...in the good years and the bad).

Happy Stitching all,
Cheri

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Peahen in Crescent Wreath

I have completed Baltimore Album block one. This block was started last November in a class with Elly Sienkiewicz. The padded roses turned out so good. The dimension did not really show with the first layer, the red background of the rose, but when I added the pink top petals, they really puffed up. It was slow appliquéing, going thru the red rose and the batting underneath (see last post), but the end result was great.

I tried to do a lot of dimension work in this block. I don't know if the little yellow flowers have a name, but I made them starting with a 1.25 inch circle. I made a little mini yo yo then brought the gathering thread to the center front of the yo yo and back around to the back of the yoyo at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o clock. I sewed each one down with a red seed bead and just did a little tac stitch on each petal. There were a few more stems on the pattern, but I got carried away with the blossoms and did not put the stems down first. I decided most of those stems were covered with just bits showing thru and the flowers filled the wreath enough. I thought I would just embroider in those stems but I really don't think the block needs it.

The last addition was the peahen which I completed off block on lightweight interfacing that Elly referred to as gossamer in the class. I trimmed the interfacing to an eight inch. It was very easy to turn under the interfacing. I think the padded roses would probably be best done off block also.

I am looking through my appliqué patterns and deciding on what will be block two.

Happy Stitching All,

Cheri

 

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Appliquéing Again

After a very long break from quilting I have picked up a Baltimore Album block to work on. I started this wreath block at Elly Seinkiewicz' class during last years International Quilt Festival in Houston. We did some inking and this block has Elly's signature under the inked cartouche, so I would really like to use it in a quilt.

 

I was a little concerned about this block having a different background but I remembered these three background pieces I bought for a project I never started.

I could get 8 album blocks from each of these for 24 blocks and the class block would be number 25, a good number for an album quilt. So I have the beginning of a plan in my head. I think I am just going to do some of my favorite appliqué blocks from the many different books and patterns I have.

Besides inking on album blocks another focus in Elly's class was off block work on padded roses. This became a problem for me as I found the technique difficult and the results were just not pleasing. I decided to go to my old favorite appliqué technique of back basting but cut out a rosé shape in batting and lightly glued on the rose shape,

then proceeded with back basting and then appliquéing the red fabric over the batting.

There may be a little more of the padded effect when the block is quilted, but I don't know that the "padding" gives that much extra. I still need to quilt in some petal lines on the rose and then I will add the pink petals with a stick and stab stitch which will in effect quilt and appliqué the pink petals in one step. This is the point I am up to this weekend.

 

I am happy to be appliquéing again, happy stitching all,

Cheri

 

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