This is the inner block of a Friendship Medallion quilt that I am working on.  It's a free pattern from Patchwork Pumpkin.  It's designed to make you use up your scraps and not buy new fabric.  They will send you one round  and then you have to send them a picture of the finished section to get the next part.   I'm loving it.


 You can get the pattern at Patchwork Pumpkin from Australia.  I can't get the link to work so just go to patchworkpumpkin.com.au  

 I am working on the Sue Spargo BOM for 2011 (I haven't started 2012 yet, but it looks wonderful) and I was really having a hard time getting the cotton appliqued onto the wool and having it come out as nice as I want it to be.

Since I'm used to the back-basting method of applique I was having a heck of a time figuring out how to get the pattern on there, since you can't put wool on a light box and trace around a pattern.

I first drew the pattern onto freezer paper and cut it out.  Then I pressed it onto the cotton fabric, which was pinned to the wool background.  Then I stitched around the freezer paper with floss, same as I would have done with back-basting it from the back.  I just "front-basted" it.

Then I removed the freezer paper, and trimmed 1/4" (or less) around the stitching, just as I would have done with back-basting.  

I don't know if these pictures are in exact order, but I'm sure you get the idea.  Now I just had to applique those pieces and then cut the wool behind them to the right size.  It worked great and I've already used this method on something else I was working on.

Thought I'd show you a problem that I was having trying to make some bias stems for a few leaf blocks.  I top-stitched the stem across the square and then I needed to square it up.

 Here is where it jammed in the sewing machine and got all twisted.  I kept thinking that there has to be a much easier way to do this, so this is what I came up with.

I sewed a long strip of the straight-of-grain stem across a larger square (corner to corner on the bias).

Then I cut the squares out of that piece of fabric.  Trimmed from one side, turned, and then trimmed the other side to get the size I needed.  It worked great.  Frustrations over!

Lately...

This is a row quilt that one of our Sew What's members, Martha, is givng us the pattern month-by-month.  January was snowflakes, February is hearts... you get it.  I've finished June but haven't sew it on just yet.  I'll post more pics as it progresses.

I started making big squares with Kaffe Fassett fabric, with the idea that it would become a king-sized quilt.  But the more squares I made the more "bulls-eye-ish" it looked.  So I cut them in half on the diagonal, and rearranged them, but didn't like that either.  But my niece loves Kaffe Fassett, so she took the diagonal-cut pieces and I breathed easier because I didn't have to figure out what to do with them.

Then I had some blocks partly pieced and I started hanging them on the design wall and started filling in with smaller blocks and this is what I got.  I'm putting the binding on it now.

This is another Primitive Garden wool block.  I did a lot of embroidery work on the flowers, but I like it.

More birds...  This is a pillow front in wool.  I have the back cut out but it's an odd shape so I have to decide if I want to border it with another fabric to fit a standard pillow form, or make an inner pillow case and stuff it to fit this size.  Haven't decided yet.

Kayleen's Bali Quilt

I don't especially like Bali fabrics, but my daughter does.  So I was in a block exchange with a group of friends and we traded these blocks over the course of a year.  Very easy and forgiving blocks.  It really was pretty in the end but I still don't especially like Bali fabrics.  LOL

Sue Spargo pillow

This is a wool Sue Spargo pillow.  It was a kit from her website.  The fabric in the back is what I used to make an inner pillow to hold the stuffing.  Then I inserted it into the outer wool pillow form.

It was very fun to make.  I love Sue Spargo's selection of fabrics and colors.

My niece has this one on her bed.

Primitive Garden in wool

This was the first block I made of Primitive Garden.  It was my third project using wool applique.  I love it!  I showed you the watering can in a previous post.  I've got all the blocks done and one border.  Three more borders to go!  I'm loving working on this.