Country House Landscaping

Gosh, I see it is almost two months since I last showed this block! It's the centre block for Lynette Anderson's 2015 BOM, My Country House. I had to re-sew the roof seam on the machine before I could applique the trees. "I'll just wait until I have white thread in the machine," I thought. Did that happen? No. Finally I threaded the white thread specifically for that one seam. It only takes a minute -- silly, isn't it?

Anyway, it gave me lots of time to mull over the width of the strips for the trees. In the pattern the trees are a little Christmas-y, with stars at the top and an evergreen shape. The tree trunks are thicker than the branches. My version is smaller at 3/4 scale, decidedly summery, and I knew I wanted to change the tree shape and put leaves all the way around the top. Finally I decided to make all the stems everywhere on the quilt the same 1/4" size, using the Clover 1/4" bias tape maker. I like the feathery look to the trees. Plus, with the smaller scale I think consistency with the stems will be cleaner, and help to tie the whole quilt together.

The stems started out pretty wild...

...but they were soon pruned down to size. The leaves are big chunky detached chain stitches, done with four strands of floss, two medium and two light green. When you compare this with the first photo, you can see other changes as well. The doorknob was done in padded satin stitch:

While I was sewing the doorknob, the window above the door started to look too empty. As an experiment, I filled the space with the same motif as the gingerbread along the eaves. It seems like the obvious choice now that it's done, doesn't it?

But after that, the original gingerbread along the eaves looked very dingy, and I became convinced that I had used a different, less white, thread. After another day or so of dithering, I took out the original stitching. The new gingerbread was stitched with four strands of floss instead of the original two strands, and fewer "spokes" in the wheel:

I think it is better. With the heavier thread I thought the colonial knots in the original would be too much. Now that I am looking at the photos, though, the knots looked pretty good, so I may still try them. Without the knots, I did have to add an extra red brick on either side to fill the empty space.

The felted wool sheep were the last addition. Two of them are peacefully munching the daisies:

And the one on the far left is looking up...

...at the big blue chicken which will sit on the right chimney. But, the chicken will overlap the top seam, so it is still on hold.

With the trees for landscaping, and the sheep as landscapers, I think the block has really come to life. Given that I started this block on January 2, I am glad to have it done!

MCH Month 3 Finished

Probably for the first time ever, I have finished a block in the same month that it was released! This is Month 3 of Lynette Anderson's 2015 BOM, My Country House. Of course it helps that it was the easiest month so far, and I simplified it further:

Instead of piecing the heart, I just fussy cut it whole from the same red fabric that I used for the house door in Month 1.

I've had the stems sewn down for over two weeks, but then I waffled quite a bit about how to sew down the hexie flowers. Click the photo to see it larger:

I pieced the flowers with 100 wt silk thread, which is completely invisible. But it felt wrong to use the same invisible thread to applique them down. So I had three options:

1. Sew down the flowers invisibly with the 100 wt silk.
2. Use cotton thread for the applique, same as the stems and heart. But, should I then change colours for the coral and orange hexagons?
3. Use perle cotton and a running stitch for the applique, same as I did for Jacks and Cats. But what colour should that be? Yellow, orange, coral, or even black?

I do not believe that an invisible applique stitch is the only right way to applique. Rather, I think it depends on the type of project and how it will be used. In this case there will be a lot of wool applique, which I like to whip stitch down with a single thread of embroidery floss. And I appliqued the stems with cotton and a regular, visible applique stitch, so they would relate to the leaves.

Finally I chose to use pink perle cotton and a running stitch to applique the flowers. I had some size 8 perle cotton in my stash, so I used that, but ideally I think a narrower size 12 would be better. I think the pink blends well with the coral and orange, and it will look nice as a big stitch quilted detail on the heart, once I get that far.

I also waffled about whether to stitch the vein on the leaves, because that is a big commitment for the 48 leaves still to do in Month 2. But, since I went with the perle cotton on the flowers, I decided it would be a nice touch for the leaves. Fortunately, I had the perfect colour in my stash! It is also size 8, DMC 580 perle cotton, and back stitch. And it didn't take long at all.

At 3/4 scale, I was just able to squeeze the 40.5" block into one width of fabric. I still need to finish the trees on Month 1, and then I'm going to move ahead to all the pieced blocks. There's a postage stamp border between Month 1 and Month 2, and I have the idea that it will be more efficient to make the stamps from the leftovers of the pieced blocks. I'm not sure it really is efficient, but I will try!

Country Flowers

Although I've been quiet for a couple of weeks, I'm still sewing! A little here, a little there. Here's a preview with the two kinds of flowers for the TQS 2015 BOM, My Country House by Lynette Anderson.

The "fried egg" flowers are felted wool from Wooly Lady. I love the colours! Felted wool is my big secret plan to minimize the difficulty, especially with the 3/4 scale, and stay on schedule with this BOM. All the critters will be wool.

The hexies are 1/2", which I decided would be the best fit for my smaller scale version of the quilt. The coral and orange fabrics are long time stash inhabitants, and the yellow and green are both fairly new Quilter's Candy Basics from Connecting Threads. There will be a lot of CT fabrics in this quilt. They seem to match the simple feeling that I want for this project.

Month 3 will probably be the first month to be completely finished. I plan to make good progress this week!

House Construction Finished

The main building work on the centre house block for Lynette Anderson's My Country House is now complete:

However, as with many contractors, some of the finish work still needs to be done!

After I finished the bricks and the gingerbread, I had to redesign the windows and door to fit into the new smaller space. The new windows are 1" square, and I decided it would be easiest to reverse applique them in. I used a ruler to draw the windows and door right on the fabric, and then thoroughly basted the blue fabric to the back:

On the front I cut open and appliqued one window at a time:

Lake view!

The door was also reverse applique, but I have no progress photos. After I cut away the yellow fabric from the whole arch, I tucked the red door fabric between the yellow and the blue. This left the blue transom window above the door free, and I just appliqued it all down. It was tricky, which is why there are no photos, but I am very pleased with the outcome:

There will be a gold doorknob satin stitched in the centre of the red circle. The white crosses in the windows are back stitched with four strands of embroidery floss. The original design has embroidered flowers in the transom window, but I like it the way it is, so I will skip that.

Any readers who are also making this project will notice that I ignored the instructions and sewed together the whole block before appliquing the chimneys (and the door). This was by design! My plan was to open up the seam just by each chimney and tuck the seam allowance inside. Then I wouldn't have to worry about placement beforehand.

The chimneys are 1/2" square, and I basted everything well before the final stitching:

With the applique finished, I just have to take out the basting, go back to the machine and re-sew the roof seam.

I did the same thing for the door, so the grass seam will also have to be re-sewn. But, the trees still have to be added and tucked under the grass, so for now that is just hand basted closed. The trees are next!

My Country House

3/4 scale -- 13.5" centre block

The new 2015 Block of the Month at The Quilt Show is Lynette Anderson's "My Country House." You can click here to see the whole quilt.

When the quilt was first revealed in late 2014 I was very tempted, but I decided that I already had enough similar projects on the go. Did I really need another? On December 31 I decided that I did. If I reduced it to 3/4 scale, it would make a nice wallhanging. BUT, I decided that I was not going to spend more than one week per month on it, so I would still have time for everything else.

That plan has failed completely, as you can see.

Regular readers know that I always like to give my projects a local flavour. A very typical 19th century brick building here in Southern Ontario is either red bricks with yellow bricks in the corners, or yellow bricks with red bricks in the corners. The library up in Uxbridge is a good example:

Most of the old farmhouses are mainly red with yellow corners, but for design purposes I thought red edges would read better. I made a template for the bricks with 1/4 inch graph paper:

I marked the bricks with erasable pencil:

My plan was to quickly work up the sides with some long legged blanket stitch to represent the bricks. But the fabrics were just too heavy to make neat blanket stitches. Plus the 1/2 inch "legs" were too long. So I have been satin stitching the bricks. For three days already.

I made a similar template with the graph paper for the white gingerbread across the eaves, but I guess I didn't take a picture. The gingerbread is stitched first with blanket stitch half pinwheels, and then I went back and put a Colonial knot at the end of each "spoke."

I know there is a loose thread there, which is driving me nuts. I will see if I can tighten it up without doing it over again.

I lost eight days to flu this month, so I have only spent about five days so far on this project. But there is a lot still to go -- windows and door, chimneys, trees, sheep, funny blue chicken, and the postage stamp border!

But -- don't laugh too hard -- I really believe I can catch up over the next few months!

(Actually, I think I can work ahead, because the piecing is all pretty straightforward. Time will tell!)

Paper Piecing Sedona Star Month 2, Part 2

A TQS member has asked me for more detail on my paper piecing method for Sedona Star, Month 2. Maybe it is lucky that I still haven't finished all those blocks! I went back and enhanced the original photo of the template with my newer photo software. Hopefully it is now clearer. You can find that on the original post here.

I also took a photo of some partially completed blocks which I think will help too:

Click the photo to see it larger in the photo viewer.

Here is a little more information on the stitching order:

1. The two halves are pieced separately as far as you see here, then joined before the final pieces are added. You can see one half in the photo on the right. Those sections are pieced starting with the light orange point in the middle, and working out, ending with the yellow point. The long blue piece beside the yellow point is the one I make a template for, because it is sewn first to the light orange fabric, and then flipped up so that the yellow piece can then be sewn to it.
2. When the two sides are done this far, they are sewn together. On the left you can see the block back with the seam right up the middle. On these blocks the excess fabric along the sides has already been trimmed away.
3. The next step will be to applique the pie piece at the bottom. On my block this is the white fabric.
4. Finally, I add the border pieces, which in my block are light green. 

Here again is my test block, all finished. 

I am still not completely decided on how to do the applique. I need to spend one more day experimenting, and then I will be ready to finalize it all. On the test block here I used Beth Ferrier's turned edge machine applique method. I will not be doing the final quilt that way, though. It will be fused instead, with the edges finished either by machine satin stitch or by hand. 

I hope that sheds more light on things! Please leave any additional questions in the comments. Happy sewing!

Related Posts

 Paper Piecing Sedona Star Month 2, Part 1

 More Month 2 information

One Year Blogoversary

Technically, it was one year yesterday, but close enough! The photo here is from our Christmas tree. I just managed this one shot today before the clouds rolled in.

My wrist situation is somewhat better, but not 100%. I've been doing some re-evaluating of my stitching activities as a result! With the blogoversary, the end of the calendar year, and the injury, it seems an appropriate time to consider what's been working and what hasn't.

Working

1. Blogging in general. I enjoy writing about my creative process, and crafting a post about a project is almost as much fun as the project itself.
2. Blogging community. I've loved making all my new blogging friends, and I love how we all inspire each other. And, I really love all the encouraging comments!
3. Blogging as a design tool. This has been an unexpected benefit of my blog. Like a quilter's reducing glass, the blog lets me step back from a project and evaluate it more impartially. I think several improvements have been implemented as a result!

Not Working

1. Book Reviews. The book reviews are a lot of work, and while they do seem to bring in traffic, I'm not sure it is the right traffic. Going forward, I'm only going to review books that have made a difference to my work. Plus, the affiliate program with The Book Depository has not been successful, so I'll be removing those links soon too.
2. BOMs and Quilt Alongs. I started this blog to follow my progress on the 2012 TQS BOM Sedona Star. I love the design, and I'm still going to finish it, but I've learned that I need to get my head around the whole project first, before I can really get started. All those waffling posts at the beginning of the year would have been avoided if I could just have read all the instructions at once. I think BOMs are a great way to produce a really spectacular quilt, but from now on I'll be waiting until the whole thing is available before I decide whether to make it.
3. Motivation. I have to say that I did think that blogging would shame me into finishing more projects, but apparently I am shameless! From now on I will be giving priority to inspiration, rather than motivation.

Unfortunately, CQJP 2013 is going to be a casualty of my dodgy wrist. It will be too much extra hand sewing, so I'll be bowing out before it begins. Maybe next year! In any case, spending more time on the sewing machine instead will be beneficial to many other projects.

To wrap it up, I want to send out hugs and a big THANK YOU to everyone who has supported my blog this year. So many people have been so open, helpful and supportive, and I really appreciate it. I can't wait to see what the next year will bring!

The Red Centre - Month 9

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks! My apologies, but I think you'll find the wait was worth it today. Here are the latest photos of Valerie Giles' Australian Aboriginal version of Sedona Star. Valerie has approached the applique months in a completely different way:

Wombat

I love that background fabric! I asked Valerie how she made these. She tells me that she started with a chalk outline on black fabric, and then fused the patches of Aboriginal fabrics onto that. Isn't it great the way she maintained the continuity of the fabric pattern across the different patches? On the wombat the fused patches were finished with a hand blanket stitch, but on some of the others she did a machine satin stitch with variegated thread:

Koala

Then the black background was embellished by hand with running stitch, back stitch and "many, many French knots" in No. 5 perle cotton. The whole applique was then stitched to the background with a machine satin stitch in black thread.

I really love these, and I think it would be fairly easy to apply this technique to other shapes. Some of the animals are adapted from a book by Julie McKenzie, and some are Valerie's own design.

So here's the whole quilt all the way through Month 9:

The Red Centre

It's looking great. Thanks so much, Valerie, for sharing your work!


Related Posts:

Click here to read last February's post about Valerie's inspiration for her version of Sedona Star

And click here to read about the original Sedona Star designer Sarah Vedeler's inspiration!

What Happened to Sedona Star?

Some of you may be wondering what has happened with my Sedona Star project.  The truth is that it is not at all forgotton.  In fact, I am looking at this pile of half done blocks and templates every day!

Every time I sew I have to move this pile off my sewing table, so believe me, the project is still top-of-mind for me!  In the pile you can see:

• Some of the Month 5 units, still in their baggie,
• Some fused practice circles, which I probably could throw out now,
• Fabric strips and templates for my remaining Month 2 paper-pieced blocks,
• The assembled ring template for Month 1, which I am going to redo with different colours,
• The paper original for Month 2, which I basically use as a "tray" to move it all neatly.

It has been like this since at least June, maybe longer.

But, while it wasn't sewing, I have done some more planning on Sedona Star this week.  Here's my test modification to Month 6:

I always felt that the applique blocks looked a little crowded, to my eye at least.  And I know that my satin stitch is going to make them a little bigger.  So my idea was to use my photocopier to shrink the appliques.  Here I cut out the middle of the template, copied it at 95%, and laid out the shapes in the original sized frame.  I am quite pleased with the result!  It is a subtle modification, but to me it feels more relaxed.

My plan is to set up the blocks with the paper-pieced borders first, and then just lay out the applique shapes by eye and fuse them all down.  This is one time when my low tech sewing room will probably make my life easier!  It is nice to have that flexibility sometimes.

Another Dead End on Sedona Star

There are now some 800 quilt blogs that claim to have taken the "process pledge," where they commit to showing their works in process and occasional failures as well as completed quilts.  Are they all doing that?  I'm not sure, I haven't surveyed them all.  But I doubt it.  I am not even sure that people want to read all that.

But, loyal readers, you all know that I am now about 20 posts in on Sedona Star, and it has been all process and no completion, so I should probably add my blog to that list!  Today I have yet another dead end to share on Sedona Star:

These are some 1.25" practice dots (from Months 1 and 2) that I set up a while ago to practice my machine satin stitch.  Then back in May I thought it would be a great idea to do all the seam treatments by hand in chunky perle cottons.  This is the result.  Not what I was hoping for at all!

The dot on the left was embellished with #5 perle cotton, and the one on the right used #8.  The purpose of the experiment was to try out the template I made to mark out the star shape in the embroidery.  You can still see the white pencil dots.  But, I learned right away that it is impossible to get the needle threaded with the #5 perle through the fusible-backed applique!

I was just able to sew the #8 through the fusible, but it put a lot of strain on my hands.  And frankly, I am not happy with the result.  I could monkey around with the fusible and cut away the centres before I fuse them to the fabric so that only the edges are fused, but I just don't think it will be worth it.  The edges of the applique still show through the perle embroidery, and I really don't like that.

At one point I had considered combining machine and hand embroidery, but now I think I'll just stick with machine satin stitch on all the applique and leave it at that.  And the hand quilting plan is out the window too.

So for now, this really is the last Sedona Star post until the air conditioning gets turned off in the fall.  Now that all the indecision is (hopefully) behind me, I'm hoping that the months will fall like dominos once I get started again.  Fingers crossed!

Taking Stock on Sedona Star

This weekend I was feeling like things were finally starting to motor along on Sedona Star.  Maybe I will actually catch up this month, I thought!  LOL.  I made a quick list of everything left to do:

Will I catch up this month?  Probably not.  But the list is actually kind of amusing, so I thought I'd share it!

Mail Call

Are you familiar with "haul videos" on YouTube where people share the results of their shopping trips?  It kind of felt like that around here today, so here's my version!

I had all kinds of goodies in the mail today.  From Stitchin' Heaven, the foundation papers and instructions for Judy Niemeyer's Prairie Star:

The people at Stitchin' Heaven are super nice.  I called them right at closing time because I always get the time zone in Texas wrong, but they very kindly stayed and answered all my questions, and then sent this out for me the next day.  I love their newsletter too!  Now that I am such a paper piecing fan I had to try this quilt.  It will be for my dad, but in different colours, which I still have to work out.  It will be a few months before I get started on this.

And for the other kind of paper piecing, the pieces for my Botanic Roses quilt arrived today from Paper Pieces:

I also ordered these huge 3" hexagons (6" across) for yet another project:

The 1/2" hexagons are beside them so you can see the scale.  The customer service from Paper Pieces has also been excellent.  They gave me the heavily discounted sale price on the large hexagons even though I placed the order before the sale started.  I think that is really admirable, and I am planning another order from them soon!

From Nordic Needle I received my perle cottons for Sedona Star:

I had a weird exchange with Nordic Needle this time, which I'm hoping was just an aberration, because they've always been good in the past.  These are Size 8 DMC perle cottons, which were actually finer than I expected.  They will probably be excellent for quilting, but I am considering ordering some of the heavier ones for the seam treatments and embroidery.  I really want something chunky that will show up well on the quilt.

And to top it all off, my issue of Inspirations 74 arrived today:

As you can imagine, I haven't had time to even open it up yet!  But, I think this will all keep me busy for a while!

First Month 5 Ring

I have been very productive, but it has largely been more of the same, so there hasn't been much to show.  All my Sedona Star Month 3 and Month 4 rings are complete, and I've started on the paper piecing for Month 2.  The templates and fabric strips for Month 2 have been sitting on my sewing table for over a month, and I have to move them every time I sew, so I am really looking forward to getting them done and out of the way!

Yesterday we had a free sewing day at my guild Rouge Valley, and I finished a lot of the units for Month 5.  This morning I put the first ring together:

I did manage to fix my wobbly Month 4 a couple of days ago, it is now completely flat.  So once again I was feeling confident this morning as put together this ring.  And sure enough, it has a wobble too!  But I don't think it is so bad that I have to redo anything.  The overall size is just a smidgen small, so it will fit into the outer template fine.  I am finding that it is so important to stay focused on this quilt!

All these points are supposed to be the same size.  The reason the light yellow ones look longer is due to the way the seam allowances are pressed.  I am pretty sure it will look fine once it is sewn into the outer block.

I really love all the fine sharp points on this block.  And I realized when I was cutting the fabrics that this time I actually followed the instructions for the colour placement!  You won't see that very often on this quilt.  Anyway, there is still lots to do.  Happy sewing!

New Direction

I apologize for the radio silence that's been going on here for a while now.  Recently I've been doing a lot more thinking than sewing!  And a bit of experimenting:

As I mentioned a while ago, I was very inspired by Sandy Lawrence's fusible appliqued and machine embroidered quilt.  I particularly liked the way the thread was a design feature of the quilt.  And I really loved the way she used more than one colour on the edges of the appliques.

I, however, do not have an embroidery machine, or even many decorative stitches.  But I did think that with careful sewing I would still be able to get some interesting multicolour effects.  You can see that I had mixed success with that!  There are some good bits, but there is no room for error.  This is all 50 wt thread, and my plan was to use 30 wt for the "blanket" stitches so they would show up more.  But it turned out that my local quilt store was closed for the Creativ Festival the day I went to buy the 30 wt thread.  So I had more time to think!

The other thing I've been investigating is quilting techniques for both machine and hand.  I came across this website where she hand quilts big stitches with pretty perle cotton thread.  I've seen this before, but this time, with Sedona Star on my mind, the whole thing instantly jelled into a plan.  I can do both the seam treatments AND the quilting with some nice colourful perle cottons!  My sewing machine does a decent satin stitch, so I will start by satin stitching all the appliques, and then embellish them by hand.  It will also allow me to throw in a little embroidery here and there within the shapes as well.

I am VERY excited about this plan!  I can finally see how the whole thing is going to come together.  And I am pretty sure this will be a unique approach!  Right now I am waiting for my threads to arrive, but there is plenty of piecing to do in the meantime.  Happy sewing!

Sedona Star Month 3

No, I haven't fixed my wobbly Month 4 ring from last week yet.  I decided it would be better to regroup on something easier, and then go back to it.  So, I've had a very satisfying day doing my first ring from Month 3:

I also put together all my Month 2 templates, so they are ready for paper piecing too.  A couple of weeks ago I said I was going to applique the Month 2 points.  But, when I pulled out my paper-pieced practice block I still really liked it.  With the fusible applique my background fabric would show through.  Plus, all these sunflower blocks are paper pieced, so it will be more consistent to paper piece the points in Month 2 as well.  So, that's what I'll do!


Related posts:

Sedona Star Month 4

Designing the sunflower blocks

Month 4 Disaster!

I definitely should have stayed in bed this morning.  But instead, I spent the morning merrily working on the last ring for Sedona Star Month 4, congratulating myself the whole time because I felt I had really mastered it.  I got it all together and this was the result:

The first two were perfect!  What happened with this one?

I checked my seams again with pins at the corners, and found that even though I was right on the lines, several of the corners were off by about 1/16".  And because they were always off in the same direction, it added up.  Overall, the size of the circle is 9.75" instead of 10".  And you can see how wobbly it is.

So for the rest of the afternoon it looks like my seam ripper will be busy.  Without fail this month, every time I let my mind wander or I get cocky, I make a mistake.  It really requires complete focus.

Oh, well, it is fixable. 

Plus, halfway through the morning, a heavy painting spontaneously fell off a shelf and broke my beloved Enso meditation timer/alarm clock.  So that's going to be expensive to replace.

What a day!

Finished Month 4 Ring

Hi!  Just a quick post today.  Here is the first completed ring for Sedona Star Month 4.  The inside edge is a little wobbly, but hopefully the applique centre will still go on smoothly.  The green fabric is Kaffe Fassett's Aboriginal Dots in Forest.  Two more to go!

Starting to Piece Month 4

As promised, I got a decent start on the Month 4 piecing for Sedona Star yesterday.  It is pretty painstaking work!  Yesterday morning I checked the Show & Tell section at The Quilt Show to see how people are doing with Month 4.  Only one person was finished!  So I had a feeling this month would be trickier.  Usually there would be four or five people done after the first week.  But maybe enthusiasm wanes after the first couple of months too.

My modifications to the template went smoothly, and they didn't seem to add to the difficulty at all:

You can see that I drew in the 1/4 inch shadow on all the templates.  I used 1/8 seam allowances on all the internal seams, which turned out to be no problem at all.  Even though the darker orange pieces would finish small, I still cut the fabric 1 1/2 inch wide so I would have somewhere to put the pins.  You can see that I have also been staystitching the side seams, which gives me one less thing to worry about with the assembly.

The assembly of the sub-units is definitely the biggest challenge:

By the end of the day I had sewn together seven, and I had to redo a seam twice.  Because joining the units is the trickiest part, I am forcing myself to add each unit to the whole as I go.  That way I will not be stuck with the worst part at the end.

You probably realize that I have skipped over Month 3.  I am looking forward to going back to it, because I think it will be a doddle compared to Month 4!  It is fun to see how the designer Sarah Vedeler is increasing the challenge each month.  We will all be Mariner's Compass masters after this!

Overall, I am very happy with how it is going.  It is becoming clear that once again The Quilt Show BOM is going to be impressive.  When you see how all the details keep building month after month, it becomes a very satisfying thing.  Onwards and upwards!

Amping Up the Mariner's Compass Blocks

Back in December, my inspiration for my colourway of Sedona Star started with the quilt Paradise in the Garden by Jean Wells.  I have loved that quilt ever since I first saw it!  Jean took New York Beauty blocks and made them into sunflowers, and I thought I could do the same thing with the Mariner's Compass blocks in Sedona Star.  There are three different Mariner's Compass blocks in the quilt, each done three times, for a total of nine blocks.

In my first plan for how to colour those blocks I only used two colours of yellow for the "petals."  I have been thinking for some time now, though, that this will be too repetitive.  I decided to use three colours instead, and to play up the differences between the three variations that Sedona Star designer Sarah Vedeler created.  But, I still wanted to keep them looking like flowers.  I decided the best way to meet all my goals would be to add some secondary piecing to the blocks.  For Month 4, I am going to add a 1/4 inch "shadow" to the lower layer of petals:

I haven't tried this with the fabric yet!  But I think it will be doable with a 1/8 inch seam allowance.  If I have to I'll increase the shadow to 3/8 inch.  All the photos today are of enlargements of the uncoloured pdf file that Sarah provided in December, which I coloured with my trusty crayons.

On a side note, do you find that you use the same colours over and over?  I haven't pulled out my crayons in years, and I found that the colours I needed for these blocks were the ones I'd used the most!  You can probably see the resemblance with my profile photo too.

Anyway, I was very happy with how this one looked, so it was on to Month 3.  My first thought was to repeat the 1/4 inch shadow (the new one is on the right):

But, I didn't think that had enough punch.  My second try:

That's pretty good, I thought, but I also wanted to see what would happen if I just widened the shadow from the first try:

This one was too "whirly" for my taste, and not flowery, so the second one is the winner.  For the last one, Month 5, I first tried the same 1/4 inch shadow as Month 4:

Again, I felt that things were getting repetitive.  I wondered what would happen if I didn't add a shadow to this month, and just changed the colours of the back petals:

Winner!  Now when I look at all three variations together, they look unified yet distinct:

Let's see how they look with my fabrics!  I still haven't got my iron, but I'm thinking that now that I've decided to fuse the applique on Month 2 instead of paper piecing the blocks, a regular iron will do the job.  I'll just find the iron with the slowest auto shut off available and be done with it.


Related Post:

Choosing colours for Sedona Star