Sunday, September 27, 2015

Prep Work and Some Slow Quilting

I started the centerpiece for my Folksy Flower quilt. Just cut long rectangular chunks of black fabric and then used my rotary cutter to make the curved 'petal' end. All freehand of course. Why bother making an exact pattern or trying to be precise when I'm trying for a 'folksy' look?
Folksy Flower quilt
After getting it pinned into a rough looking circle, then I trimmed it up some with the scissors. There's more overlap in places than I'd like, but what I don't want is gaps at the top of the petals. I'm not much into basting my applique into place, pins generally work well for me, but this is a big piece. After some consideration, grumbling and metal warring going on, I went ahead and took the time to baste. And see? I pulled too tight on some of the stitches and now have some ruffling at the edges. grrr... People say that basting saves the individual pieces from shifting, but I have seem to have the reverse problem. Oh well. This way I should have a lot less trouble with pins dropping and worries about people randomly finding them in their foot. For some reason that makes people unhappy.
All basted and ready for the applique stitching....
I've also been slowly plugging along on my Scrap Basket and Rolling Stones quilt. I've reached the outer rows of blocks, but just when I started to think 'woohoo! There was sure a lot done', I counted. Yep. There's 18 blocks left to stitch. That's more blocks than there is in the center rows! Gotta just laugh and go with the flow.
Scrap Basket in the hoop....
One frame at a time and the stitching slowly adds up--it always does. I did go ahead and lightly mark the outside border thinking I'd squeeze that into the frame at the same time as the outer blocks. It's just a smidge too much quilt for one frame though, so I'll have to come back around and stitch the outside border all by itself.
Starting to stitch the outer blocks...
None of the stitching is very fancy in this quilt {is it ever with me?}, but I'm happy with the way it's adding some nice texture to my quilt. And btw, the only big stitch quilting is in the centerpiece. Now I'm stitching with a turquoise Gutterman hand quilting thread. Just keeping it sweet and simple.....

Time to link up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching!

18 comments:

  1. The quilting looks fantastic from here! I love the basket and stones quilt!

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  2. The quilting looks great! It'll be fun to see your folksy flower project grow : )

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  3. Love the Folksy Flower! Are you going to blanket stitch around the edges of everything (raw edge applique)? Or needle turn?

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  4. LOVE that folksy flower. Can't wait to see how this one progresses.

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  5. Ditto what Wendy said! I'll be watching for more about Folksy Flower.

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  6. Ooh, that flower looks good! I also like how your quilting is coming along - I had never thought of mixing big stitching and 'normal' quilting in one piece, but it's a good idea (and who needs 'fancy' stitching?)

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  7. I love your basket and stones quilt, too. You do such lovely things combining patchwork and applique.
    I'm already looking forward to your journey with the folksy flower. And trying to resist the urge to drop everything and applique *all* the things...

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  8. Love your folksy flower...great job

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  9. Great fabric choices for your flower centre and petals, I'm very much a freezer paper appliqued, try needle turn but don't like how puffy it looks. This will be fun when done.

    You flower basket and Rolling Stones also looks great! Keep on rolling!

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  10. Folksy Flower looks like it will become a lovely centerpiece. Working applique on such a big piece would seem to be difficult to me. I like your idea for making those petals--they really came out nicely. All your quilts are so creative and inspiring. The Flower basket/Rolling Stone is coming along so well...enjoy slow stitching on it... I only have three more Poms to big stitch--hugs, Julierose

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  11. Love your folksy flower! Looking forward to what you will do with it!

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  12. Gee, I'm impressed with the folksy flower already! What size is it?

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  13. I agree, beautiful folksy flower..I Love how hand quilting gives each quilt texture too..I think it looks better than machine quilting....well, my machine quilting..Ha.

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  14. Do you turn your seams under on this basting? It looks like you don't. I haven't appliqued in so long but I'm always inspired by your work. Next quilt... maybe.

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  15. love the quilt in the hoop and the new one you show too - you always have such great ideas that work well to give your quilts such a "folk" look

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  16. I love your Scrap Basket quilt and I am looking forward to watching you progress with Folksy Flower.

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