Battle of the Stars.

I’ve made real progress on this project in the past week. The centre section is now finished.



I’m starting on the corners and the sides now.

I haven’t 100 percent decided on all the fabrics yet, but this is a start for one of the corners. I’ll need to do some stash diving to decide on what else to use. There are some five point stars and some setting diamonds that go in between these 10 point stars, I’ll get these 3 large 10 point stars done and then I’ll lay out some colours and fabrics with them to determine what is going to work. I should know what I’m doing with it by the end of the week. So my job for today, after I link up with Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching will be to finish off these large stars.

Battle of the Stars

I’ve retired the appliqué project for a bit and gone back to one of my english paper pieced quilts instead. The last time I had this one out was back in July, going by what I was writing about here on the blog. (At that time it was the middle of the summer and we were in the middle of a wonderful camping trip. Now, it’s cold and snowy out..... sigh.... I want summer back..... Anyhow, I got a bit distracted there for a moment.) And that sounds about right because I started the appliqué project in early August. The bonus of having so may different things on the go is the lack of opportunity for boredom..... not that I’m ever bored. But  I needed a bit of a change. I added two more of the ten point stars to the centre section today. And since I took those pictures I’ve added on a thin green diamond unit to the right of the yellow star. The next one is aqua coloured. But this is what it looks like so far. Another of the bonuses of having multiple projects going is the ability to rediscover the enjoyment from one to another.  I love doing EPP and also love doing appliqué. So it seems only fair to do both. Or at least that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. I’ll link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Stitching....

Slow stitching to the point of being almost non-existent. I’ve been sick, with drags everything to a halt.... stitching and knitting and blogging. But I’m on the mend now other than being very very tired.It wasn’t anything drastic, just a cold, but every one I get as I get older seems to take more out of me and longer to get over. But I guess that’s true of most things as we age.

I’ve pulled my Hold Onto Your Heart quilt back out and am getting ready to start back at it.  The centre section of this quilt is almost halfway done. 



I’m also thinking of getting out one of my hibernating English Paper Piecing projects, but that hasn’t gone any further than just thinking. I hate this feeling of being too tired to even think let alone do anything else. But as always, it will pass. In the meantime I do web browsing and youtube surfing and marathon Primevideo watching. I’ve gotten into watching Doc Martin lately. It’s quite a lot of fun,

I’m linking up with Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching

Applique and knitting

I did more knitting than appliqué these past couple of weeks. I’ve started a new sweater called Moon Pulls, found here, using a wonderful wool called Washted by Malabrigo. It is so deliciously soft!!! I don’t want to put it down. It’s worsted weight yarn so it is going really fast. In addition to this much of the body, I already have the sleeves already done.



 I watched a few youtube videos and learned how to do two handed stranded colour work. I’m clumsy at it since my left hand has very little coordination, but it is a great improvement over one handed and having the colours of yarn twist around each other. And just because I’ve learned that new technique, I have to make sure I get lot of practice...... all new techniques require lots of practice don’t they? You know where this is going don’t you? I ordered more yarn and bought another pattern for yet another sweater. It’s likely going to be another week or 10 days before the new yarn gets here. I wonder if I can get this project done before then? Wanna see a picture of the new one? It’s called Canyon Road and is found here.
This seems to be my year to get engrossed in knitting. I hadn’t realized just how much I’d done until I got curious the other day to look at all the projects I’ve finished since last January. I won’t bore you with the names and details of each of them. But I did come up with an interesting statistic when I added up the yardage used on all of them. Over 18,000 yards of yarn which converts over to over 10 miles used in the past 10 months! YIKES!!
However, today I am determined to get back to my appliqué. I have half of this section finished but got stalled because I needed to trace out more of the shapes and draw in the embroidery lines.



The tracing of the shapes isn’t bad, but the placement of the embroidery lines is a bit more time consuming and bulky. It involves a makeshift light box using a desk lamp and a large clear tote box. The tote box gets balanced upside down on a foot stool and my lap with the desk lamp on the floor underneath everything. Then I have to wrestle the paper pattern that has been taped together and the quilt over top of that in order to do the placement tracing. All of which explains why I’d been putting off doing it. But now it’s done and I’m ready to go.



Time to fill up that empty space in between the diamonds and the berries with another pineapple and  pomegranate and all the other fun details.
Before I get to that I’m going to link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Hand on your Heart

I’m continuing to work on this quilt. It has so much variety and interest that it is continuing to challenge me to keep going. I have the bird scenes finished now, except for a little bit of embroidery.



So now I’m moving on to what Esther Aliu calls the Bowl of Plenty Scene.



  These pieces are just sitting there. I have some embroidered stem to do before actually basting and stitching the elements into place. There are some leaves and flowers yet to prepare for stitching as well.  That pineapple took 3 tries with different fabrics before I got one I was happy with.



I’m not going to get much done on it this afternoon unfortunately. I have a dentist appointment..... very close to the top of the list of things I hate to do. I’m Linking to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching. I’m looking forward to seeing her post next week about the slow stitching retreat happening today.

I’m just a bit Obsessed....

I can’t seem to put this quilt down. It’s Hand on Your  Heart by Esther Aliu. There is so much variety in this quilt which saves it from being tedious. The worst thing is the small leaves, and I have found a system to get the edges turned and the flaps of the points tucked under on those leaves so that nothing sticks out. . This large flower was fun. I found a fabric that had flowers with large centres in them. The flowers couldn’t be fussy cut, the edges were too jagged. But the centres fit perfectly into this big one. Kinda like a big stylised sunflower or zinnia or dahlia.
And then there’s the bird. I went stash diving because I wanted a subtle brown tinted bird and found this wonderful McKenna Ryan fabric that is actually birch trees. I thought it would make wonderful feather type colour effects. I might have to do some sort of colouring or tinting on the lilac type flower behind the bird to make it stand out more. Here’s the bird in its context. 

And another shot showing the side of the quilt with the second bird just set in place. Looking at it now, I think I’ll need to do the leaves and flowers that are in close to the centre coming off the bow before I do any more on the right hand scene. It will be too  bulky to hold on to if I don’t. Sometimes it’s a good idea to stand back and look at things to analyze the process. And taking a photo is one of the best ways to be able to stand back and look at something. Especially when living in small spaces.

After these bird scenes are done I get to go to the second side of this centre square and do some houses. Which gives lots of opportunities to do some more deep stash diving.
 I’m linking up with Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Hand on Your Heart Stitching

I’m continuing with my obsession with this quilt. I’m starting to add in the bows and some of the leaves and flowers. 

In Esther’s instructions for these flowers and stems she gives an alternate of doing embroidery for the stems rather than bias fabric. She even gave a link to the instructions for the Hungarian Braided Stitch. I’d never seen this stitch before so I went to the link and watched it and decided to use it. It took a few tries but I finally got it and I really like it. The texture in it is great. The size of the final stem can be varied depending on the thickness of the embroidery floss. I wanted a fairly thick stem so I used a thick floss.
I have lots of floral fabrics that are the right scale for the flowers on the end of the stems so I’m trying some fussy cutting. This is a Dahlia, but I think I need to trim off the leaves. They make the motif too big to fit in with the other things that will be going on. Plus they don’t fit with the leaves coming off the stems.



 I love the depth the flower gives without all the work of building it up petal by petal. Here’s a big shot showing what Is finished so far, minus the flower. There are four of these bow designs that go around the centre of the quilt. I’m thinking right now of using different flower heads on each one of them. But that decision will wait until I get to each of them since I’m working one section at a time rather than doing all of the bow units at once.



There are months to go before this comes anywhere close to being finished but it has revived my love of appliqué.
I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then I think I’ll trim off those leaves and get that flower in place.