Dresden applique WIP, a Shoo Fly flimsy and a quilted finish!



I have slowed down in the hand stitching department, but this is the progress I made early on in our Covid19 lockdown.  I tend to sit and watch too much  news when something "big" is happening, but after awhile I get overloaded and stop.  
Still it was a good opportunity to get those tiny circles appliqued on.  I have two left to do, but the prep takes awhile and I need to motivate myself again. The weather is cooling off more and more, so tends to lead me to undertake hand stitching at night - no idea why!
I finally pieced all the Shoo Fly blocks together and added a border to make it the prefered size of the charity.  I have used lots of a Jodie Carlton sea gull print in these blocks and the colours are nice and bright so I hope it appeals to a child.  I will make more of these blocks but pay better attention to the ironing of seam allowance as these were all mashed together and make for lumpy intersections.  So not looking forward to quilting it! I was thinking that it could look quite nice with sashing, but again, will need to plan it so I can use a coloured sashing I think - too much white on a child's quilt is never a good thing!
I have finished hand stitching the binding down on the first of three four patch leader and enders quilts I have made.  This one used up all the pink and purple blocks and some of the light blue.  I decided using white with red print sashing would work well on this top and get it out of my stash!  There is quite a lot of it, as its left over backing.  I was going to make a scrappy pink binding, but accidently used the 2" die on my Go cutter instead of the 2.5".  In hindsight I could have tried the smaller size, apparently Lisa Bongean prefers this size for binding, but I was so cross with myself that I threw it in the 2" scrap bin and found something else. 
I have been very glad of my mothers stash during this lockdown as she has a good collection of fabrics big enough for backings and is happy to share!   I am in love with this fun backing and managed to make it stretch to one more quilt and it will feature in a few more tops to come as borders.   I did run out of wadding though and had to piece large left over pieces for this quilt.  Honestly the term "frankenbatting" was very appropriate in this case, it was very wavy!  Being mindful this is a child's charity quilt that would get lots of washing I choose to heavily quilt it, using a 2" grid.  Luckily the design made this very easy and I have a very large spool of white thread.

Happy quilting Sue.

4 comments:

  1. Well done on more finishes. All I have managed is to start new quilts, and not got to my UFO pile at all. Applique quilts do take a lot of preparation and I seem to be spending a lot of time in "Kindy" tracing, choosing fabrics, fusing and cutting before I can even start stitching. Need another 6 months in isolation I think!!

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  2. I can tell you have sewing energy to spare. It's amazing what can be accomplished with L/ E's. Both quilts are great for kids. I use my batting pieces all the time especially for smaller quilts. Lately, I use a very fine fusible interfacing that I cut into 2" strips and fuse the edges of batting together. It makes for less bulk and less time.

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  3. Well done! You are getting lots more done than I am at the moment.

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  4. Your little Dresden blocks are incredible! Great work!
    And two great quilts--I used to rely heavily on my Mom's stash. My first few quilts were made mostly from her stash, or she would take me shopping and buy the fabric for me. Quilting is an expensive hobby, and when I was getting into it I had little money to spare. Thank goodness for generous mothers. right? :)
    That is such a fun backing and looks perfect for that quilt.

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