bogged down in the flowers

Life has been busy and I'm finding prepping flowers for my table runner to be a bit of a challenge.  I've only done a bit of applique and the prep is always what slows me down.  Sharon has a different technique for using freezer paper where she places the freezer paper shiny side up on the wrong side of the fabric. The edge of the fabric is then pulled over and ironed to stick to the freezer paper. So I'm not so hot at this. LOL  I tried a couple of different techniques that I've used before...hmmm, still not too good and went back to trying the way Sharon does them.  I have lots more to prep so hopefully I will improve :-)

On a different note...I read a really good book!  If you are fans of Jennifer Chiaverini,  she has a new book out in her Quilter's series that I really enjoyed. 

The Christmas Boutique brings her Elm Creek Quilters helping out at the last minute for a charity boutique to raise money for needs in their community. Jennifer's stories have been very fun reads for me and this one did not disappoint. I bought mine on Amazon.
I'm linking here to Confessions of A Fabric Addict. For inspiration, go check out the other posts. And I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with safe travel and good people to share your gratitude with. Happy Thanksgiving!

A Win and a little progress

Last month I told you all about the Autumn Jubilee going on over at From My Carolina Home.  I hope you had a chance to go check out all the inspiration. And the prizes even just for visiting!  I think it was last year when I won some LED lights for my sewing machine...that I liked so much that I bought an additional set for my longarm which work wonderfully.  This year I was kind of blown out the water again....with a gift card to Fat Quarter Shop!  Fat Quarter Shop is rather generous as I see them as sponsors to many endeavors. I'm sure many winners of their gifts have as much fun as I did! When the day came for me to do some online shopping, I felt a bit like a kid in a candy store with money to spend :-) 
My choices were some notions that I had been thinking about.  I started with the Diagonal Seam Tape by Cluck Cluck Sew.  Useful for lining up the stitching line and I may not have to draw lines for HST's. I've tried a couple other versions of these notions but they seem difficult to get out of the way of my feeddogs or stick to the presser foot and dislodge. This tape just sits in the front of the presser foot and doesn't get in the way of anything. So far so good!
 The Slotted Trimmer finally seemed useful because I started pressing triangle seams open and this is a great pre-pressing way to square them up.
Then I picked out a new seam ripper and the navy blue Splash rotary cutter...well, just because it was a fun new color :-)
And then a gift...not pictured and some fabric.  So a big Thank You! to Carole for hosting such a fun and inspirational Autumn Jubilee and to Fat Quarter Shop for their generosity and awesome product line up! This was quite a treat!


















The Straits of Mackinac quilt is still on the sidelines as I work on this table runner in the sew along with Sharon Keightley.
The quilt top with the string border is complete.

I have prepped all the 48 leaves along with the bias vines. The four little pots are cut out but the flowers are only cut out as far as cutting out the freezer paper templates and piling up some scrap choices. So hopefully I will get those prepped this week and can start the machine applique process. This part gets scarier! LOL

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict for more inspiration!

Autumn Bouquet progess

Here are the ShooFly blocks for my table runner.

And here is Elinor helping me with how to lay them out.

And this is as far as I've gotten with a 3" (finished size) string border.

I have made some bias strip vines to applique on the borders and today I'm picking out fabrics to use for leaves to go with them. The bias vines were fun to make as I used a Clover bias tape maker which I'd never used though I bought it about 25 years ago :-)  Better late than never.  It worked well though I think the fusible tape that I used with it may be too old to provide any adhesive when I go to apply it to the borders. 
Happy Stitching!
Linking to Confessions of Fabric Addict and Alycia Quilts go see some great inspiration there!