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Finally!  I've made some progress on my "Repro Madness" project.  I have added a 1-inch finished sawtooth border around the center medallion block (the block finishes 16-inches square and 18-inches square with the addition of the little border). It took 68 of the little suckers for this one border, but it was made much simpler by taking all the ingredients as my "leaders and enders" project during the retreat.  For those not familiar with Bonnie Hunter's "leaders/enders" concept...she uses something like this, say two triangles, as the fluff that she adds to her chain piecing "chain" right before being ready to stop chain stitching.  That saves thread and makes it easier to start chain-piecing again without the machine trying to "eat" the fabric bits.  That is how I made all my half-square triangles, which I later pressed and trimmed down to size before assembling strips of the little beasts. I love how this border looks around...

  Call me old-fashioned, and mostly I would agree with you.  There are a lot of new-fangled, modern quilting shortcuts that I embrace whole-heartedly. But when it comes down to trimming hand-applique blocks, I prefer to be safe than sorry.  Especially when I am trimming down to an unusual size for which I don't own a plexiglass ruler. Even though I still have handful of Sue Garman's " Afternoon Delight" applique blocks yet to stitch, I just could not wait to start trimming them to the unfinished size of 7-1/4 inches square. I have a 7-inch and 7-1/2-inch commercial ruler, but no 7-1/4-inch size.  I made my own plastic template with lots of drawn lines to make it easy to find the center and line up the corners. Because I have a tendency to slip when rotary cutting (especially when I am nervous trimming hand applique work), I got the template where I wanted it, then piled on my vintage pattern weights (I use them on the commercial square rulers, too!!)....

I have a few more "Afternoon Delight" (Sue Garman) hand applique blocks finished.  They are portable, so I mostly sew on them when I am away from home, waiting on some thing or another. These will finish 6-3/4 inches.  There are 40 appliqued blocks in this quilt. I hope to get a lot of the double nine patch and other pieced blocks for this quilt done on my retreat at the end of September. These are just delightful and fun to do!  It is interesting and satisfying to experience my collection of shirting and repro fabrics as I sew.  When I hand stitch, I can really study what went into the design of each fabric and enjoy each one.  I think I used a different background for every block. These one-piece designs may not be the most interesting, but they were certainly fun to stitch...just one thread choice per block for them, LOL! I hope to prep the last block for the "Contentment" quilt today. I'm getting more and more excited about finishing that quilt.  I ha...

During my sporadic evening Olympics TV viewing, I was able to finish more "Afternoon Delight" blocks.  I now have 25 of the 40 applique blocks hand-stitched.  These blocks will finish to a little bigger than 6 inches square. "Afternoon Delight" is a quilt pattern by Sue Garman.  There are quite a few pieced, scrappy blocks in this quilt, which I hope to power piece at a retreat at the end of September. The Olympics were fabulous!  I wish I could have spent more time watching.  And it was really nice to have the media focus on something else for 16 days.  The next ten weeks of political stuff are going to be brutal in the ol' USA. I wish we could adopt something like the Canadians have in this country...they have a very limited time of campaigning before elections.  I think I heard that last time it was something like 78 days, which was long for them. Wow...it feels like it has been 78 months here, LOL! I have been working on the attached 3-car garage...

This is block eleven of my original "Contentment" applique anniversary quilt project.  The block is 10-inches square and represents our shared love of music. Steve plays guitar and sings, and I play piano, clarinet, and sing.  I decided not to try and represent all those things separately in one applique block...at least not this time, LOL! Only three more surround blocks to go on the "Contentment" quilt. One is prepped, so I hope to stitch it this weekend. I am also working on the 40 applique blocks in Sue Garman's "Afternoon Delight" quilt as we all continue to pray for her continued strength in fighting cancer. This is block #31 and my favorite so far!  I loved the challenge of all the little...what are they, tentacles?  Whatever they are, they are a great design motif and fun to stitch. The blocks are 7-1/4-inch trimmed. I did not find these little doo-dads hard to hand-applique, but I will admit that cutting out the freezer paper template was a ...

I know, right?   TWO posts in two days from me, right?  Totally atypical of my life lately, but I will take it! There are forty appliqued blocks in Sue Garman's fabulous quilt pattern, "Afternoon Delight."  Here are the first fourteen, all stitched, soaked and pressed.  They will be trimmed down to 6-3/4 inches before piecing them into the quilt. This first block was so FUN!  At first glance, it looks like one red fabric.  Her intention was for us to use FOUR different fabrics in making this one...such a fun, and I must admit challenging, little detail. Me, and the method I use for hand applique, were up to the challenge! These blocks were the perfect little sewing project to take along for camping in the great Canadian outdoors for a week or so.  The fabrics and busy reproduction backgrounds were perfect for hiding dirt and accidentally squished little spiders... ...I did wash out a couple of small stains from a squished little spider and two mos...