A way to cheat on my applique prep - BRILLIANT!!

I think I showed you this block that I designed before.  It is going to be the center medallion for my "Little Treasures" project.  

It has been languishing on my design wall as I pondered the skinny border that would come next.  I need a 2-inch border - the rest of the quilt is made up of alternating pieced blocks from my friends and my LITTLE TREASURES applique blocks, all finishing 6-inches and all done in Reproduction fabrics.

That's going to be a very busy quilt, so I want a strong border, but not just a boring strip of fabric.

Ta da!  Appliqued red and black stars on alternating black and red squares (these aren't sewn together yet).

OK...I can hear you now..."those are mighty small stars (each block will finish 2-inches) and lots of them...too difficult and time-consuming!

I have found a great cheat, and now I will share it with you!  I made these eight little blocks as an experiment in NO TIME using this...

The step in my applique that slows me down is tracing pattern pieces on freezer paper and cutting them out.  I also like to scrapbook, and these paper punches make repetitive shapes SUPER easy!

I have experimented with stars, hearts and circles.  Here's how I do it...

You can use a piece of freezer paper from a roll or a loose sheet. But in the heat of hurriedly pressing multiple freezer paper patterns to multiple little scraps, I sometimes end up accidentally sticking the glossy side of the freezer paper to my IRON instead of my FABRIC.  I hate it when that happens!

Now I scribble on my freezer paper to make the right side obvious with a quick glance...

Now I will know where the glossy side is...

I have been cutting out some circles at the same time so that I don't waste my freezer paper...

I like this Fiskars star as it has rounded star points, which I find MUCH easier to turn under with a glue stick.  If you have a star punch with pointy start points, just ignore the points when you start gluing your edges under.

These stars measure about 1-3/4 inches across, which works well as my squares will finish 2-inches.

It is hard to see, but I cut from the edge of my allowance to the paper pattern between all the star points (where my tip of my stiletto is pointing).

Then I just work my way around, gluing and turning under.

With the state of my fumbly, numbly, cat-bitten fingers, I use my tools for everything, so I use my stiletto point to to loosen one tip of the paper, then remove the it the rest of the way with my big beading tweezers.

I will soak and rinse my squares after stitching to remove the glue, followed by pressing and trimming them to 2-1/2 inches.  So, I glue-baste my stars to the center of a scrap that is at least 3 x 3 inches.

"Dot-dot-not-a-lot" with the glue-baste, not too close to the edge because I don't want to stitch through the glue.

I trim to size (after stitching, soaking, and pressing) with my 2-1/2 inch template.

Pattern weights on top of glue-basted stars...

Cool, huh?  Look what else you can do with punches?

Those tiny circles are 1/2-inch, my friend.  The larger circles are 
1-1/4 inch.  The middle-sized circles are 3/4-inch.  I used to hate cutting out all those little circles from the freezer paper!  With the punches, this is easy-peasy!

The crazy pencil marks help me press the glossy side down onto my scraps, not the bottom of my iron.

Now they are ready for gluing the edges under!

All pressed an ready to put away.

This is what I can do with some of the smallest snippets of scraps I save and they work up really fast.  I am storing them until I cook up a plan for them...

They make all kinds of punches...shapes, squares, HEXIES, circles. I'm just saying...

In Stitches,
Teresa   :o)

"Invisible" hand quilting...

I'm quilting along on my "Folk Art Applique" quilt...I didn't get it finished for the 36th annual Sauder Village Quilt Show.  I would of had to have it finished by last Sunday to drive it down in time for show set up.  I realized the Tuesday before that I was ABSOLUTELY INSANE to think I would finish the hand quilting in time.  Maybe, if I had nothing else to do the rest of the week, but I didn't have that luxury.  (The Wonder Woman cape is back in mothballs...)

Wow...NONE of my black quilting thread shows up in the pictures...except where I crossed the vine when outline quilting the grapes.  Those grapes are floating on a skinny piano key quilted background.  I should have quilted this in GREEN...because my  BASTING stitches certainly show up, LOL...

I am outline quilting all the applique in black, then quilting on top of the applique motifs in off white.  I am doing a cross-hatching design behind the applique blocks, then, as mentioned, the "invisible," skinny piano key design on the outer border, behind the grapes.

At least the white thread shows up!  This feels a little like the "Emperor's New Cloths" style of quilting in that I'm telling you the black quilting lines are there, but who knows...maybe they really aren't...

Does anyone out there have suggestions for photographing black quilting thread on black fabric?!?

So now I am ENJOYING the leisurely hand quilting even more...now that there is not a self-inflicted gun held to my head (big grin).

I took the two other quilts I had planned on..."Boxer Rebellion" (otherwise known as my husband's old undies...)...

...and "X Marks the Block," an original, free-pieced, "liberated" quilt that I made for my daughter.  The original plan was to hand quilt this one, but that plan changed last February.

The show runs from Tuesday, May 1 through Sunday, May 6, and I am going tomorrow (Friday).  A little bird emailed me Tuesday morning to tell me that "Boxer Rebellion" won second place in the Small Wall Hanging, Mixed Technique, Hand Quilted category (thanks, Norma!).  Being made from old underwear and stupidly quirky, the best I could have ever hoped for was an "Honorable un-Mention-ables" ribbon...hee-hee-hee.

When I called Steve at work to tell him what I heard, he was happy his underpants were being enjoyed by the judges and so many women from all over the Midwest.  HA!  You just never know...

My daughter is a self-proclaimed nerd...straight A student (in an IB program, no less!), closet novel author (we just printed initial copies of her first book!), a musician, a lover of Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Who, Merlin, and horses.  When I say she loves Harry Potter books, movies and characters, etc., I mean she LOVES them!  Here she is, years ago, posing with her first Harry Potter quilt that I came up with...she has requested another, more dark and mysterious one...not "cute" like this one.

(She had just lost her two front teeth...)

Anyway, my friend Bonnie (no blog) turned me onto the coolest site for "nerd quilting"...it's called Fandom In Stitches.  This site has all kinds of great, FREE, paper-pieced blocks by and for fans of Harry Potter, "Dr. Who," "The Muppets," The Lord of the Rings, "Merlin," Sherlock Holmes, etc.  This site even has some favorite Disney, comics, games, sports, and other patterns.  You'll enjoy browsing here!

Tomorrow I am off with friends to the 36th Annual Sauder Village Quilt Show in Archbold, Ohio...I can't wait!  I'm kind of bummed that I didn't finish my "Folk Art Applique" quilt in time...next year!

I will take lots of pictures to share with you!

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)