I tried the “backwards” applique last night and couldn’t believe the difference! And this after hand quilting for a few hours! I’m sold — but will force myself to just do a little at a time!

The cleaning out of pizza boxes and drawers resulted in another find — the beginnings of Rose Sampler Supreme pattern by Rosemary Makhan. Don’t know if that one will get finished or if I’ll just use the few blocks I’ve made for cushions or something. Still thinking on that.

This is a picture of the little quilt I made that I can’t show yet. I used a tool in Photoshop to conceal the pattern, but it gives you a good idea of all the colours I used in it. Photoshop is a lot of fun to play with!

And this is our Smudge — as soon as he hears that camera click, he’s right there.

Peg’s challenge still has me motivated, it seems, to get some things finished up. So I got out the pizza box where I have some applique blocks stored and found this little block. There’s a pattern for a number of teddy bears in different occupations — called “Bear Family”. I have the nurse bear done so far and one other block is back-basted, ready to go.

And I found these — all from the Piece o’Cake patterns called “Flourishes”. I have 8 of the 12 blocks done. I’d like to try to finish this one even though applique is becoming a problem for my hands — perhaps if I just do a little bit at a time rather than sitting down and appliqueing for a few hours at a time it will help. I’m also going to try a different way of stitching and stitch towards myself, rather than away. Apparently that is helping a lot of people. We’ll see.

And, finally, a picture of Smudge awake!

I received a wonderful package from a friend that included these.

This apron applique pattern looks like it will be a lot of fun to stitch. It came as a kit (fabrics shown below) along with the tiniest little clothespins I’ve ever seen. For some reason, I cannot get a decent picture of the clothespins but they’re unbelievably cute. Make me grin every time I look at them!

These are the fabrics for the various aprons. Instead of embroidering a clothesline, I’m thinking of using some very narrow rick-rack when I make this.

Look at this bundle! Those Serenity III prints are so gorgeous. I took a couple of shots of different ones. Now to figure out just what I want to make using them. I don’t think they’ll work with anything else in my stash, so whatever I do will be limited to using these fabrics only.

Up until now, I’ve kept my stash in large Rubbermaid-type containers. They’re too big for me to handle so this weekend is going to include some reorganizing. If I can cull enough out of one of our bookcases, then it will be converted to fabric storage. It will be wonderful to have the fabric where I can see and reach it easily. That’s the plan at the moment.

Somehow I don’t think Smudge will be the least bit impressed with this reorganizing and moving around of furniture this weekend.

The weather doesn’t sound great for our Victoria Day weekend, so it will be a good time to get this done before the summer heat starts. Of course, I’m assuming summer is going to eventually get here — although one can’t help but wonder. I can’t believe we still need heat on at night!

This week I’ve been working on back-basting the last of the batik ovals so they’re ready to applique. By the time the week is over, I’ll have the final 100 of the approximately 250 blocks basted. This is going to be an interesting quilt.

When I decided to start this quilt, I knew the only way for me was to use the back-basting method. So I traced the oval on to the wrong side of the batik rectangles.


That’s it. That’s all the prep work I need to do before settling down with needle and thread other than cutting the batiks, of course. Once the tracing is done, I simply pin the smaller rectangle on.

Then I baste, working from the wrong side and following the traced line, using small stitches, button thread and a slightly larger needle than I would normally use. Once the basting is done, I cut the piece to be appliqued to a rough 1/8 of an inch turn-under allowance and generally let the piece sit for at least 24 hours, although frequently that time is much much longer. This picture shows the back and front of 2 blocks basted and ready to stitch.

When I’m ready to start working on a block, I simply snip about every fourth stitch of the basting. I pull out the first couple of sections of thread, start to applique and it’s magic. Because of the perforations from the basting, the piece to be appliqued turns under right on the line. This is the best applique method I’ve tried. I get great placement, even on complicated blocks with lots of pieces to be appliqued, and there’s no fiddling with freezer paper, pins or glue or dealing with an overlay that has to be rolled up and held out of the way.

It’s always amazing to me, when I turn a block over after it’s completed, and see that my applique stitches are exactly where I had traced the shape. All one needs to do is take the time to trace the pattern as carefully as possible. If your basting stitches are right on the lines you’ve traced, the applique will be as good as your tracing was. Pure magic with very little effort!

And, for the requisite kitty photo, Smudge treated us to yet another of his poses.

Have you seen the two-applique patterns from Pacific Rim Quilt Company? I’ve done one and have another ready to backbaste. Then I have these two waiting. The fabrics are washed and ready, so it’s solely a matter of tracing the patterns on to the wrong side of the background fabrics and then backbasting them.

I think the time of year when I get to these will be the deciding factor on which one I do first. If we’re getting close to Christmas, then I’ll do the Candlelight one. I think it will look wonderful as a wall hanging at Christmas. The Peacock pattern, though, is the one I am really intrigued by right now.

Backbasting makes applique so simple and such a joy for me. Once the pattern is traced, I quickly baste the focus fabric on to the background. I use very large stitches and just stitch around the perimeter of the focus fabric to hold it in place for the backbasting process. The next step is to stitch, using a thick thread and a large needle, on the tracing of the pattern. I usually use button thread or quilting thread and a larger needle for that part. That’s the backbasting — one is stitching along the pattern lines on the back of the background. Once that’s done, I generally let the piece sit at least 24 hours, and sometimes a whole lot longer than that, before I begin the applique.

When I’m ready to start appliqueing, I snip a few of the backbasting stitches at the point where I want to begin. After that, it’s a matter of simply starting to cut away the focal fabric about 1/8 of an inch from the basting line of stitches, turning under that amount and, thanks to the perforations caused by the basting, getting really accurate placement of the applique. The placement is as good as the tracing. If I’m careful with the tracing of the pattern, then I get a fabulous result; one that is much better than I would ever have been able to get with an overlay or freezer paper or any of that. There’s no fiddling with pins or freezer paper or keeping an overlay out of the way.

Smudge poses for photos — we’re sure of it. He will hear the click of the camera being turned on and holds the pose or, quite often, strikes a new pose. Today, he decided to get real close to the camera and this was the result.

Lester, on the other hand, is less of a ham and doesn’t feel compelled to pose for the camera all the time. Right now, with the birds and squirrels out on the roof garden entertaining the boys, the windowsill is one of his favourite spots.

I think spring is well and truly finally here. I have seen and heard robins out on the roof garden, the gardeners are really starting to work on the roof garden and we’re finally getting temperatures in the mid to high 60s during the day. It’s about time after the winter we had!

This is one of my favourite quilts that sometimes is draped over the bed — I just love the old look of it. Hand appliqued and hand quilted — and it has that wonderful crumpled look of an old quilt now that it has been washed a couple of times.

I started this Dresden Plate design ages ago and have about 20 of the blocks done. It has been in a baggie. All the little spokes are prepared for enough blocks to make a king-size quilt, so it’s really just a matter of stitching 16 together for each block and then appliqueing them. The block finishes at 7″ square. Although the pattern calls for a heart in the centre, I’m undecided about that. I’d like to do something a little off the wall for the centre and may applique a small diamond or square in the centre of each block. Still thinking. This is a fun one to make — and will, I think, look fabulous when done. It has been “marinating” in the baggie for ages. I need to do a lot of these blocks to make it large enough for our bed, although I’m contemplating using plain blocks in between and then having some nice space for a feathered circle or something comparable. It may need to marinate a bit longer.

It has been bitterly cold here. When we get wind chill values of -25 Celsius or lower, I absolutely refuse to go outside! Thank goodness we live somewhere that’s connected to the great Toronto underground. Just about everything one could wish for can be found in the underground malls — everything but a quilt shop, that is.

Edited to add:
I forgot! I was tagged by Joan at My Quilt Life to do the 7 weird facts about yourself.

The rules are:
–Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
–Post THE RULES on your blog.
–Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
–Tag 7 people and link to them.
–Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

7 Weird Facts:

1. Dislike peanut butter — the smell and the taste
2. Love bacon but find the smell of it cooking nauseating
3. Love the hot and humid days of summer
4. Can re-read favourite books over and over
5. Love playing with and learning new-to-me technology
6. Prefer British-made TV series and movies to those made in North America
7. Although I loathe winter, I can’t sleep in a warm bedroom — has to be practically freezing for me to sleep.

This seems to have been going around the blogs for ages, so I am not going to tag anyone. However, if you read this and haven’t been tagged for it yet, please consider yourself tagged!