Peonies applique block

This is your new block for this month.  It is called Peonies.  I quite like these cross over kind of blocks with a bit of red and green.  If you go to the RHS of this page, and click on the photo it should take you straight to the spot where you can print out the drawing.  Set your printer so that it does not scale and just prints to actual size.  It is an 8"block, but you can increase the size if you want.  I made it 8"then I know it prints on one page only.

It is still terribly hot here, and I have not had much inclination to do any more of my cleaning out and decluttering.  I did get a few cool-ish days and evening, and was able to start on the hand applique of the Birdy quilt. 

 As usual, I had no clue as to how I was going to quilt this quilt.  My usual approach is to quilt around all the shapes, and in the ditch, if there is any pieced parts (like borders) and while I am doing that, I start to get a feel for what might suit.

I settled on doing echo stitch in all the background of the centre part of the quilt.  It takes a while to get into the swing of it.  Best part is that you do not have to mark the lines!  saves heaps of time.

 I did start on one of the borders as well, which I did have to mark.  My favourite marking pen for this kind of fabric is the wash out blue pen.   There are lots of brands on the market, and they have never let me down.  They have never "not come out" or never "reappeared" or never left any marks, so I keep using them.  The ceramic pencils are very popular now, but I find with hand quilting, and handling the fabric all the time, they tend to rub out.  Also, the new iron out pens - Frixxon - are a bit scary in my opnion.  Anyway, I don't want to iron my quilt once it is quilted.

The design is pretty simple, and I can use my long ruler for this.  It is just 3 parallel diagonal lines 1/2"apart then a gap of 1"before I start the next set.  I started in one corner with the marking,  and worked down one side and back the other.  They all seemed to meet ok.  I read that this design was quite traditional for the time in which the original quilt was made.

With the echo quilting, you just go around everything until you come to a spot where you are kind of boxed in, and then fill in that part with the same stitches, at your chosen width apart. 

I guess mine are somewhere less than 1/2" wide and greater than 1/4".  I just "eye-ball" the width and it seems to work out.

I got a fair bit of my de-cluttering scrappy quilt put together last week.  So far I have made 9 20"blocks, and I want to make 4 more.......and I have enough left overs!  it is on the list for a cooler day this week.