One Piece at a Time

More Baskets!

Here are all the reversed baskets so you can start finishing your quilt.

Download Basket Case Reversed patterns

I will be posting the border pattern once I get that done as well. That picture is still the photoshopped version.

Enjoy!

Workshop Wednesday: Working with Spoonflower Fabrics

I have been bitten by the Spoonflower bug. For those of you who don't know about Spoonflower it's a print-on-demand fabric site with an absolutely gorgeous selection of yummy prints. You pick the print then pick the fabric you want and order however much you want. Once I get some of my fabric designs ready I am definitely going to try having them printed there. 

So, I wanted to try out a couple of the fabrics to see how they would work for applique. In the photo above you can see I tried a couple (robinpickens and micklyn are the designers). I tried their Petal Signature Cotton and Organic Cotton Sateen here. The fabric is digitally printed so you get beautiful colors. I found that the turned edge applique technique that I use was the best method for hand appliqueing because the fabrics have quite a bit of body to them. Needle-turn or back basting would be challenging with these. I also found that these needles shown below are excellent for working with these fabrics.

 

National Voter Registration Day

Today is National Voter Registration Day. Have you verified that you are registered to vote? It only takes a minute and it's important because states update their voter registration rolls. So, make sure you are on the list!

You can check here:

www.lwv.org

or

www.vote411.org

Also, if you are planning on voting by mail or requesting an absentee ballot, each state has different guidelines. Be sure you know what is required in your state. Here is an adorable map I found on Instagram to help you but you can also check at the websites I linked to above.

 

The LAST Basket!

Here is the last basket! If you look closely at the quilt you will see that all the other baskets are just the reverse's of the previous baskets. All I can say about that is that symmetry is my friend! Now I can focus on the border.

You can download the pattern here:

Download Basket Case 5 pattern

Workshop Wednesday: Designing borders

I absolutely LOVE applique borders even though they are a pain to design and sew. Here is my probably over cumbersome way of doing it just in case you want to design your own some day.

First off, I make copies of all the things I think I might want and cut out a full size piece of graph paper (any paper will do but I'm kinda addicted to graph paper).

Then I doodle and make notes and get a good first pass. I found at this point it's important to start making applique shapes so I can see how it looks with actual fabric.

Once I get about of 1/4 of the pieces on I baste it and have a look. The thing I noticed here is that I think it needs some of the light blue and since ladybugs solved my color problem last time I decided to try butterflies this time...I'm sensing a bug theme here.

Here I have jazzed up the corner with a bow and added some butterflies.

Now that this is all together I photograph it again and so some Photoshop gymnastics to see how it's all playing together...so far so good. I'm not terrible thrilled with the white space in the middle of those edges but I have enough to get started...this has me thinking about what to add there too.

Design Wall Monday

Well well well

It turns out that bad weather is GREAT for border designing! I managed to get a good start to the border for this quilt.

For your weekend

Hello Applique Addicts! Here is Block 4 for your weekend enjoyment. You can download it here:

Download Basket Case 4 pattern

Still Learning...ideas?

When 2020 first started out I had a couple of goals...learn to use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop AND make as many quilts as possible. I wanted to learn the Adobe programs so I could do more professional graphics for my patterns and also learn to design fabric. Here are a couple of my latest fabric designs. I'm a little stuck though. I want to design some coordinating prints but I'm not sure what would look good. Any ideas? Stripes? Checks? Dots?

The last picture is a design I did for a class at Make Art That Sells. If you are interested in learning about the commercial art world this is a great website! Really inspiring!

Design Wall Monday: Let the border designing begin!

Here's a look at my design wall this holiday morning. Colorado is having some fire trouble and our air is filled with smoke so I stayed inside and got this quilt together. I find that once I start assembling a quilt I cannot stop until it's done. Now that I have the borders on it's time to play with flowers again.

In other Colorado news, our forecast for tomorrow is SNOW...I'm not making that up...we are going to have snow! Just a couple of days ago it was over 100...oh well, it's never boring here.

A Weekend Basket

Hello Applique Addicts! Things have been a bit quiet here but I'm happy to have a new basket for you all in time for the weekend.

You can download it here:

Download Basket Case 3 pattern

For all my US readers...Have you checked to make sure you are registered to vote? Do you know where your polling place is? Do you know your state's policy regarding voting during the pandemic? If not, here is a great website to find all that out. I hope we have the highest voter turnout EVER! Thanks!

www.vote411.org/