My Books are Coming!

I just got a tracking notice from AQS!  My books are coming!  MY BOOKS ARE COMING!  It officially comes out Tuesday, August 30th!  I can't wait!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Floral Kaleidoscope - Part Five

When I last left you, my quilt top looked like the picture below.  The big flowers were on and stitched and it was time to add the dots.  There were originally supposed to be seven dots inside each tulip, but after sticking on the first set of dots I decided it really only needed five dots.

Here are the dots all stuck on and ready to sew...

And a close-up of the dots.  You can see that they really are close together.  I knew that trying to rip the stabilizer between them was not going to be easy, so I didn't.  I ripped down to the top dots and then left the rest.

I love the dark purple I chose for these dots.  They really help pull in the purple from the center.

Now to add the other color dots in the second flowers.  I decided to go with orange dots to accent the orange in the main tulip fabric.  They don't stand out as much as the purple dots, but not everything can be crazy bright....right?

And here is the quilt top with all the dots added.  Getting close to being done!

You can see above that I am also starting to play with some black and white fabrics.  Stay tuned...

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Seashore Summer Blog Hop from the Island Batik Ambassadors!

I'm so excited to participate in my first Blog Hop for Island Batiks!  It's called Seashore Summer and we'll be showing you the latest fabrics from Island Batiks.  Be prepared....they make you want to go shopping!

Here is the complete list of the hop!

Monday Aug 15 - Rain Forest

Kissed Quilts 

Tuesday Aug 16 - Red Tide 

Free Motion by the River 

Mary Mack Made Mine 

Wednesday Aug 17 - Sand Dune

Purrfect Spots 

KnitBug 2 

Tamarinis 

Thursday Aug 18 - Seashore

Pamela Quilts 

Maria Michael Designs 

Kissed Quilts 

Friday Aug 19 - Surf Squirt

Quilting Affection 

Archipelago Quilting 

Monday Aug 22 - Tradewinds

Arkangel Creations 

Bejeweled Quilts 

Tuesday Aug 23 - Equinox

Kauffman Designs 

Del Lillians 

Wednesday Aug 24 - Sea Canyon

Lemon Tree Snippets 

Bea Quilter 

Thursday Aug 25 - Sea Foam

Stone Cottage Quilts 

Sew Supportive 

Friday Aug 26 - Spoolin' Around

Sallys Quilting Corner 

Toolontilkkupaja 

Monday Aug 29 - Tide Pools

Inchworm Fabrics 

MooseStashQuilting 

Tuesday Aug 30 - Wind and Sea

For Quilts Sake 

Patchwork Breeze 

Wednesday Aug 31 - Spring Zing

Desert Bloom Quilting 

Adventurous Applique and Quilting - That's me!

Thursday Sep 1 - Splash 

Kissed Quilts 

The Patchwork Pearl 

Friday Sept 2 - Landscapes

For Quilts Sake 

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Tile Inspiration

I had a reading training last week and we went to Subway for lunch.  This tile was in their bathroom.  Yes, I take pictures EVERYWHERE.  I had to take a picture of it because it really looks like a completed quilt!

This is the stairwell wall at the school I was training in.  It looks like a bargello quilt!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Floral Kaleidoscope - Part Four

One of my favorite parts of doing applique is adding the next layer of pieces to see what happens.  Here's where I left off.

The next pieces I decided to add were the very center.  I knew it might be tricky to stitch since it's in the center and I wanted it over with.  As it turned out, it was just fine to stitch since I rolled the edges of the fabric and helped support it.  I will say that my thread choice was not the best however.  The color was right, but if you look at the picture of the back of the quilt you can see there are some blobs of thread on the back.  It looks fine on the front, but terrible on the back.

And now it was time to add the big flowers!  I decided that I didn't want all 12 of these flowers the same so I was going to use one fabric for the north, south, east, and west flowers and one for the 8 others.  However, when I started playing with it I realized that I liked them alternated better, so that's the way I went with it.

Here is the back.  You can see that I left the stabilizer between the points of the tulip shape.  This was done intentionally because I knew I was going to put some dots there and would need stabilizer behind it.

Here is the back so far.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Free Motion Friday - Blobs

I love the new design for this week!  I found stitching it out to be really quick once I understood how to make it.  I did try stitching this one out in a small scale, but I must admit the larger scale is more effective.  I also realized that orange thread on a pink background really doesn't show up much.  I took a very low light shot below so you could see the texture of the pattern.

The written directions can be found here.

Here is the video instructions.

And lastly, here are the picture instructions.

This design was originally going to be named "Cheetos," but after I started stitching it out, I realized that not every blob looked like a Cheeto, thus it became Blobs.  Start by making a curvy line.  The make it into a shape that looks like a Cheeto or a Blob.  I tried to keep them fairly uniform in thickness/the distance across and I tried to make sure it had a bump out or in at some point.

Here you can see the second shape I made.  It kind of looks like a Cheeto.  I'm talking puffed Cheetos, not the crunchy ones.

If you come to the edge of the fabric, just stitch along the seam until you get to a place where you want to start again.  Here are a few Blobs all together.  It looks kind of like stippling, but with closed shapes instead of just lines.

Here you can see how my Blobs are interconnecting and changing shape to fit spaces as I go along.

And the final Blobs taken in low light so you can see the texture.

Okay, so that is a LOT of instructions. Out of curiosity, I'd love to see comments on which way(s) you prefer directions.  Thanks in advance!

The lovely Ginny shared her first three samples on my Machine Applique Adventures Facebook group+.  They look wonderful Ginny!  Here is her Crying Clamshells form week one.

I too was using this design on a quilt this week...here's a preview of thing to come.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Floral Kaleidoscope - Part Three

Time to add more pieces!  It's so fun to watch the quilt grow.  You can see below that there is clearly a blue flower missing.  I hit that piece just right on the iron and somehow managed to crinkle it up really well.  While it was still hot I quickly pulled the flower and remaining bits of Steam-a-Seam 2 off the fabric.  I then cut a new piece to replace the ruined one.

All fixed and ready to do some more stitching!

Here is a closeup of the center.  I love the symmetry here.  Aligning all 24 pieces so that it looks symmetrical was a challenge, but one that was definitely worth it in the end.

If you look at the dots on the purple pieces you can see they are all at about the same place on the piece.  I marked the dots on my pattern pieces of Steam-a-seam to make sure they would all be at the same height.

Below you can see a closeup of the stitching and you can also see where my piece of stabilizer was put underneath the two green petals in the bottom of the photograph.

One thing I have been experimenting a lot with lately is using different sizes of blanket stitching.  For this particular quilt I had some trouble keeping the stitching even due to the size of the fabric so I decided to leave them all the same size 2.0 mm wide and 2.0 mm long.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy