Bramble Blooms - Central Applique

Bramble Blooms is under way.  The instructions from Audrey at Quilty Folk were to create/sketch a floral applique for the centre of this project.   Hmmm....my go to sketch papers are 3.5" squares from a paper block, sometimes designing whole quilts on a single piece of paper!   I have no formal (or informal!) art training, but I can draw stick figures, including stick flowers.  The bottom middle one has been a flower I can remember drawing always.  I wanted to keep this a simple as possible as I do very little applique and, although I enjoy the actual hand sewing, I'm sooo....slow.

I took this little sketch and enlarged it on my printer, playing with various scaling options, and reprinting and enlarging again the enlarged page.  10 pages later....

I quite liked that the image was chopped off at the edges on one of the pages, and decided to use the various sizes, trying to give a sense of perspective.  The flowers are all rough cut, and I am not separating the petals (I don't think so at this stage!) to keep it simple. The white pieces are the paper "templates", to be removed.   I want to hand stitch after pinning and basting by machine.

 I started with the straight cut stems, and cutting and sewing was easy, but....how to press?   I don't recall when I bought these, and had never used them, the packaging was still sealed!   They worked like a charm!

Hurry Up and Wait!

Our house is on the market.   The photos taken make us wonder why we are selling it!  If you are curious, this is the link:  https://www.property24.com/for-sale/kenilworth-upper/cape-town/western-cape/14224/113497536   We've had a few viewings, but no takers so far.  I guess we just need to be patient!

 This is the back garden, and that's the new house (on the centre left) to which we are supposed to move. All in good time!

 

 In sewing news I finished the three Little Quilts of Love.

A number of the quilt bloggers that I read had shown an interest in joining with Audrey at Quilty Folk as she conducts a Quilt Along, entitled Bramble Blooms. The timing for this was perfect, so pulled some fabrics and have created the centrepiece.  It measures 20-1/2 by 25 inches.

 

 

The fabric's for Bonnie Hunter's new mystery called Indigo Way have been released.   I want to make a quilt with blue fabrics, so this was really serendipitous, and again have chosen some of the fabrics, just have to wait (more patience!) for the instructions to begin.

 

 

Lastly, the progress on a yarn project.  I like to having a portable yarn project that can be quietly worked on at group meetings or watching TV.  I had a myriad of small balls of yarn that needed to be used.  I like Tunisian crochet as it grows fairly quickly and has a solid texture.   I made five strips from the yarn scraps and then figured it needed to be wider.   I cannot remember where the skeins came from, but I had a box of tapestry yarns (embroideries and cross-stitch I've done, but I've never made a tapestry!), and these are getting stitched up as well.  The left hand strip is the first with tapestry yarns, and I'll make one more.  Lots of ends to sew in! 

 

Cheers!