Wildberry Vine

Yesterday I finished assembling the last of the hand applique blocks for part one (1). It's amazing how much time this process requires. It's definitely much more tedious and longer than a machine pieced block. By mid morning, every block was ready to be hand stitched.

I have a room in my home on the first floor that I call the sunny room. We painted this room a light yellow because of the amount of sun it gets during the day. It has two (2) Large windows, one facing the east and one the south (that window being pretty much from floor to ceiling). It is such a cheerful room to sit and quilt or read a book. It is quite a moral booster on those long winter days.

In the sunny room I sat and did some hand applique most of the afternoon. I managed to finish two blocks. I now have three (3) more to hand applique and part one of this BOM is done. Today, I'm not sure how much I'll get done. My daughter has a half day of school.

It's is not a sunny day today, but that's okay. I did get my daily dose of sunshine yesterday. Happy quilting!

UFO # 3 - Wildverry Vines

Today I worked on part one (1) of Wildberry Vines BOM. I had not worked on this part of the pattern so I felt it would be best to start numerically. This part has three (3) machine pieced blocks, nine (9) patch star and five (5) applique blocks. I worked on the nine patch stars today and managed to prepare the hand applique squares.

I'm one of those quilters that does not read all the directions before starting. I guess you can say that I'm visual and just look at the picture and the numbers. So I proceeded to cut the necessary fabric for the center of the star as instructed, 1 & 3/4 inch strips. Upon completing the center, I read the instructions. The author says "square nine-patch to 4 1/2" X 4 1/2"." Okay, so a light bulb comes on! Why should I be squaring? After doing some math I concluded that the strips should be cut 1 & 13/16" in order to arrive at her required measurements. It annoys me when designers are not accurate. So my next two (2) blocks were cut accordingly, the top block being the first pieced.

Off to do some hand applique while watching a DVD. Hum.... what movie shall I watch?

My New UFO Project - Wildberry Vines

Here it is my next UFO project, Wildberry Vines by Nancy Odom of Timid Thimble Creations. I will admit that this is a biggy. This was a block of the month I had decided to do at the last minute. At the time I worked at Quilter's Courtyard in Vermont. As you probably all know, when you work in a quilt shop it's a constant tease. I don't know why they call it a job, it's not like I made any money! lol but I digress...... So, on the last month I decided to join and only because Annie, who was in charge of the that particular BOM, says to me "I managed to put an extra kit together, did you want it?" Okay, so I had mentioned to her that if they had extras I would join, but did she have to listen to me and make an extra! lol She did an amazing job with the fabric combinations, how could I refuse.

Being the complicated being that I am, I decided to hand applique the blocks. Everyone did the fusible web thing, but me? That would be too easy! Today I took the time to get a bearing on where I'm at on this quilt. It's not as bad as I thought. I may have approximately 8 to 10 blocks to do and the border. I haven't decided if I will keep most of the applique on the border. I'm thinking of only doing the vine part.

I've come to the realization that the more I work on UFOs the more they show up, out of the blue. I've decided to make a list of all the UFO projects that require completion. This way, as they magical re-appear from their hiding place, I can add them to the list. Of course we won't mention a thing about those projects I have specifically purchased fabric for and are just sitting there, patiently waiting for attention.

Voila Old Friends!

Here it is, at last the wall hanging is completed. I cannot believe I took so long to finish that quilt. What was I thinking? There was so little left to do. Friday, I took the time to applique the eyes. For the pupils, I decided to draw with black thread using the sewing machine. I do like the way the eyes turned out. Afterwards, I finished the embroidering of the ears, whiskers and mouth. Onward I went to the sandwiching part.

For machine quilting I chose not to do anything fancy as I did not want to detract from the characters. I do like the way the quilt turned out.

I chickened out regarding the borders. The pattern called for a mitered corner border so I cheated by doing a mitered binding. Large binding does require more fabric than mitered borders, but it felt safer. I realize that one day I'm going to have to tackle this fear of mine but today wasn't a good day.

I will now go rummage through my UFO bin to see what project I will tackle next. I'm sure it wont be a quick one like this wall hanging.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to peak at my blog. Your comments are always welcomed and appreciated.

Next UFO Project - Old Friends

This is my next UFO project that I shall be tackling. The pattern is called 62802 Old Friends by Warren Kimble published by Fiber Mosaics. I started this hand applique and embroidery pattern back in 1998/99. This is/was my first attempt at hand applique. I really don't know why I put it aside. So little is left to do on it. Appliqueing the eyes and embroidering the whiskers, that's it! For some reason I just could not bring myself to complete this wall hanging.

I did ask a good friend of mine Cheryl from Oz, who graciously accepted, if she would finish the embroidery but somehow I think I would be cheating myself of the wonderful feeling of completing my first ever hand applique quilt.

Today, I glued the eyes in and they are ready for hand applique. Once the eyes are done, I will embroider the whiskers. There is one main border left to add and voila, the quilt will be ready to be sandwiched and machine quilted. I promise to have a better picture next time. It's just that the eyes are now glued and it would not reflect the stage the quilt is at.

Best let you all go so that I can get some work done. My next UFO will not be that easy to complete. I've peaked at my listing on Stashbusters and it's a project that requires much more work to be completed. Perhaps Old Friends is a good project to tackle after the paper piecing quilt ordeal.