Playing

Yesterday was a play day. Whenever I'm learning something new, I don't consider it learning; it's more like playing to me. I like to experiment and see what works from me after following the directions and trying it the first way I was supposed to do it. Sometimes I find a better way; sometimes I don't.

Here is me playing with feathers and fillers on DW. Every time I fire him up I feel a little more confident and am willing to go a little further outside my comfort box. Sometimes I adjust my stance or my angle of where I quilt to get the best results. Sometimes I play with the lighting. Sometimes I play with a combination of stitch length, regulated mode, precision mode (that no longer scares my BTW) and all other little quilting quirks.


After messing around with him for a bit, I traveled into my appliqué world. Once again, learning something new and trying it the way the instructor advised, then playing with different variations on what may or may not work best for me.

This is a piece both Carol R. and I are working on right now. I believe she is actually making two of these, and I may end up making a second one as well. I think this particular pattern would be nice for the DeGroot reunion since so many of us garden and enjoy all the bounty that comes out of it.


As I mentioned yesterday, I'm trying appliqué without the use of Heat n' Bond or other fusible something-or-another. I don't like how it works under my needle on the sewing machine and I don't like how stiff it leaves the pieces afterward.

This method involves starch, a stiletto, and a heat source; I'm using a sealing iron I purchased from The Marshall House yesterday. Man, does that thing work great! The templates are made on two layers of freezer paper, which I have miles of around here and it really doesn't take much longer then the fusible method.

I like the fact that my pieces are all pretty clean looking and don't have those stray threads all over the place from fray. A few do, but those are my first pieces and I really didn't know how to coordinate my stiletto and my iron when turning over my seam allowance. I'm finding I'm becoming rather addicted to this project, which is good since I have all these lovely new notions with which to do it with.

And, once again, more Amish Star blocks were constructed; four yesterday.


Since it's Tuesday, I'll be making another The First Snow block and we'll see where the cloudy day sends us after that.

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