Pom Pom Tree

All the February blocks are completed now - the Blueberry Basket, the Tulip, and now the Pom Pom Tree

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This block makes me smile!  It reminds me of the old English Court jesters - the ones that use to run about with bells on their hats and pom poms on their shoes.  Hope it has that smiley effect on others as well.

The block is now ready to download on the Legend and Lace website.  The cost is $4.50.

So, now I can put my feet up and catch up with a bit of other sewing.  I want to make another machined quilt out of my stash.  After the Rolling Stones turned out so well, I would like another big block quilt.  I had in mind a Virginia Reel - also know as Snail Trail and Nautilus.  You can see the Rolling Stone quilt top here

I was so excited about the rain the other day.  We have not had rain since September, and it is so brown and crunchy all around us.  The rain did not stop for 2 days, and we ended up with the wettest day in 45 years!  how is that?  We did not get any flooding where I live, but there are lots of people effected with flood.  Best part is, it put out the bush fire that has been going in the Flinders Ranges for a month.

I woke this morning.....

and there was this strange sound on my roof....pit, pat, splat!  Now what was that? I am sure I have heard it before some place........ah, yes, RAIN!  I feel like I want to strip off and run around in the rain.  It's ok, I promise no photos :-)

Now life can get back to normal.  I have been working on a few applique projects, and I got the next part ready for the Tiptoe Through the Tulips quilt.

We are now up to the first border.  You get to make these 4 pieced border strips, by either hand or machine, then add the appliqued stars in the corners.  Once again, I stuck pretty close to the original quilt colourings, and found this reproduction brown printed plaid, with a pink leaf pattern on top.  The original quilt maker used a couple of different brown prints.

The pattern is now available to download on the Legend and Lace website.  The cost is $4.50 for each part.

I started to download the Benjamin Biggs block of the month, and went looking for a stash of Smithsonian fabrics I had hidden away, thinking I could use some.  I found the fabrics, but I also found for Maltaville Album blocks from 2012.  Many completed, and quite a few partly complete.  I saved the BB blocks to my computer, and went back to the Maltaville blocks.  They are very interesting blocks, and I get to play with lots of different fabrics as well.

These are some of the finished blocks I found, and I would guess there are another 4-6 blocks elsewhere. 

There are also these 5 partly completed blocks.  I used some of these as demos for "back-basting" applique as they have some really good shapes to show the technique.  Not only can you use it to make the larger shapes like the leaves, but I use the same method to do the skinny little stems.  So many interesting shapes in this quilt.

Perhaps this will be my priority for a while.  I must make a list!

I think the heat has got me!

I made a mistake!  Blame it in the weather, not my frazzled brain.

In the Blueberry Block I put up the other day, in the Rotary Cutting part there is an error.  Sorry!  At least it is cutting larger rather than smaller.........some consolation.

Template B - the rectangles on the sides, the size should be 5 5/16 x 2 1/8  NOT 3/18.  If you made the block already, you probably worked it out, and cut the extra off.  Also, in template D it is 2 7/16 NOT 2 7/17, but you probably worked that out as well.

I have changed the file, so all new blocks downloaded will show the correction measurements.  You can find it here

A Blueberry Basket for you

I dug deep into the scrap bag and found this colour combo for the Blueberry basket.  Some of these fabrics would be about 15 years old.  When you start hoarding bits of fabrics, you JUST KNOW that you will need them one day.  One of my quilting friends confessed just recently to having thrown out all her scraps.  I feel tempted at times, as I have 3 bags and 2 boxes, but I do a lot of applique, and I have found some treasures in those bags and boxes.

Hope you like this little basket.  I will turn it the other way so you get another view of it.

Looks a little crooked in the corner, but it is just the angle of the photo.  I squared the block up when it was finished.  I am hand stitching all my blocks, and I find that easy with the templates.  The girls doing them on the machine might find the sizing a bit hard again this month as there are a couple with 1/16ths and 7/16ths.  I usually take these up to the next measurement, and trim back if I need to.

We have just had our second heat wave of the summer.  This time the temperature got up to 46C - that is 115F, and it did not even cool down at night much.  Once the heat was over, we had the most incredible gale that lasted all night and half of the day.  There is lots of damage with trees and houses.  We got off fairly lightly with 2 broken trees......and lots of dirt!  Everything I touch has a new coating of dust on it.  Have not felt much like sewing.

Enjoy stitching this little basket.  I would love to see some photos if you can be bothered sending them to me.  You can get your pattern from the Legend and Lace website HERE