The book I am "doing"

I love books and purchase quite a number every year. I have realised that I often read a book and think I can do all the things described in the book. If I do not experiment with this information I do not not really know if I can do it. I often think of other ways to do it- or I take short cuts.

The book I am "doing" now is Pat Holly and her sister Sue Nickels's book "Raw Edge Applique". How wonderful to read a book from such experts. Their regular prize winning quilts make it clear that they are real masters. What is so wonderful is that many books might give patterns and designs but then the essential information to guarantee success is often lacking. Not so in the book of these two sisters. They share all the little secrets showing step by step how to turn sharp and inside corners when using the blanket stitch.

A valuable statement they made was: One do not have to think because you are working with the machine that you need to sew at a top speed. When using blanket stitch on small circles one often need to do it stitch by stitch turning after every stitch ever so slightly.

My project after fusing

Unfortunately I try to take a shortcut when cutting the border piece by only marking one quarter on the applique paper and folding it in quarters- big mistake- as you can see with my uneven scallops. It is good to run into trouble- I have learned a valuable lesson- and hopefully will now take notice! Short cuts in Patchwork often lead to unsatisfactory results! The iron dropped some dirty water on my white background. I hope when I completed the project it will wash out.

Here is my nearly completed stitched project. I added the batting before I did the blanket stitch. I like the support the batting give to the stitches and already some textures are created. 

I am impressed with the way some of the many stitches on my machine can make 

wonderful patterns an can be used to add detail to a project.

 I added the birds fringe with machine stitches

The blanket stitch is just lovely.

What fun it was- to be on my own workshop. Thanks to my two wonderful teachers, Pat Holly and Sue Nickels. Now I just need to quilt this.