Good morning everyone. It’s Friday. My how the week seems to fly by in retirement. All items needing attention not quilt related have been attended to so now it’s quality time in the sewing room.
Dolly Days (Paper Doll Quilt) is complete and has been shipped to the mother to be. Hopefully she will receive it today. I have to admit I totally enjoyed the quilting of it on my Bernina Q16. I challenged myself and was very pleased with the outcome. Being a novice at free motion quilting I do not as yet have many stitches in my personal library, but managed to enhance the quilt top with my meager skills.
I have now returned to Friends of Baltimore quilt. I have prepped one corner square and am in the process of sewing the pieces. For some strange reason the side borders did not attach and fit the pattern as indicated. I know I cut them absolutely correctly so not sure about the pattern, which leaves me to make adjustments but allows me to be creative. Still playing with the spacing. Will be adding more leaves, and possibly some flowers. Oh and discovered I had somehow missed embroidering the little stems to the red cherries on the left side border so I will have to go back and complete those. How I missed those, not sure. Silver moment.
Lost my mind and signed up for Edyta Sitar’s BOM Stars Upon Stars with Homestead Hearth. Received the first month’s installment and decided that I did not want it to become relegated to a bucket list tub so I have challenged myself to complete each month as I receive it. Well……. I have a pretty good skillset for intricate piecing but boy has this pattern challenged me. I have admired but really had not aspirations of working with 8 pointed stars but for some reason this quilt spoke to me and I listened. Actually I have avoided them for years. All those Y-seams and such. Eager to get started I watched several You Tube videos on her technique. Thus, I began. I have substituted some fabrics with some from my stash, as I will continue to do throughout the year. I read, reread and reread the instructions. I made a sample star block from watching her video which measures 11″ square. That turned out very nice. Then I began cutting the pieces for the small 8 pointed stars and realized they will be 3 1/2″ square. I made 2 and was not happy at all with the outcome (good thing I’m using my own fabric stash) so cut out more and combined Edyta’s technique with my own way of executing Y seams and voila I have a 3 1/2″ star block that lays pretty flat. I made 4 of them and the 4 half star blocks. Next up will be the sashing strip. From what I have read she indicates you will need to sew a scant 1/4″ SA. Some have suggested moving the needle position a bit to accomplish this. I’ll have to see if I am able to play with the needle position on my Bernina. I know I could on my Pfaff but it is currently loaned out at the moment. Otherwise I’ll use tape.
Have a great weekend and happy stitching.
Sissy Malone
Appliquenut 