What to do with a Hawaiian Applique block?
May 27, 2006 Quilting
I declare my Hawaiian applique block a success. At first my applique stitches felt a little rough. As I forged onward, I found my grove. I really enjoy applique. I can’t believe that I haven’t touched applique in over a year. I need to correct this. Here is the finished block:
A close-up of my work:
I realize that it isn’t perfect. Regardless, I’m fairly pleased with my work. Now I need to decide what to do next. I thought about making 9 blocks for a small lap quilt. I threw that idea out the window when I pictured my fine work being manhandled. Plus where would I put a pink & yellow quilt? It doesn’t fit with my home decor. I settled on a small wall quilt.
Idea #1: Applique 4 small blocks for cornerstones. I could easily reduce the pattern on a copy machine. In the book, there is an example of small corner stones. I like the look. The border would be a coordinating print.
Last week at quilt group, my friends quickly tossed Idea #1 out the window. Now I have Idea #2, a slight variation of Idea #1
Idea #2: Applique 4 blocks for cornerstones. The corner stone would be just one leaf of the block. I love this idea. The leaves will point towards the larger block, I maintain design continunity, and I don’t have to applique a small design.
I purchased the fabric last Saturday. Today, I prepared my blocks. This is the first block:
Quilt Discouragement
May 3, 2006 Quilting
Last week, I tackled the Lone Star Applique UFO. I sorted through my fabrics, looking for the perfect star fabrics.
I started with these three fabrics: dark green, light pink, and medium pink.
I sewed them together. Ugh. It didn’t look right. I actually set it aside for one small moment without having an emotional breakdown. I browsed through the stash and decided the green needed to go. The blue neeed to be added. I had these 3 fabrics to work with: dark blue, light pink, and medium pink.
At this moment in time, I was a very happy quilter. Without too much pain, I made these little star points. They grew up to be portions of a lonestar.
Beautiful! Right?
Then I decided to see how they look next to the middle portion. Disaster struck. I have several problems.
- I want to added the star to quilt based on the line I drew on the photo. However the line doesn’t meet in the center of the star. I believe this is caused by star points that grew while being PRESSED. I really tried to be carefully while pressing. Apparently, I wasn’t careful enough.
- I’m not in love with the way the lonestar look next the rest of the quilt. It doesn’t look like it belongs. Granted, I don’t have any background fabric. Perhaps the right background fabric could make it work if I could fix my over sized star.
- The star is actully too large for the designated space. The star can stay if I make the background large. This kind or ruins the look I was going for. I wanted the layer look. A larger background will make the middle look like it is floating.
So what am I going to do? I need advise. I have quilt group on the third Saturday. I hope that can point me in the right direction.
