Sampler quilt block #6 - Monkey Wrench

 

This quilt block - Money Wrench was done the same way using the foundation piecing method as the Pineapple block I did before.

Using tear away stabilizer I traced the pattern on four 6" pieces.  I placed the fabric pieces on the unmarked side and stitched along the marked lines of the foundation.

I used 3 different print fabrics, of which I chose a plain pink fabric as my background.  From the strips I made the four-patch blocks to create the center pieces.

To make sure I got the patches right in the center of the template I held it up to a window to make sure the seam lines were lying exactly underneath the drawn four-patch on the foundation and that the centers matched.

I placed the four-patch block on the unmarked side of the tear away stabilizer and pinned the first two background colour fabric triangles and stitched on the marked lines of the stabilizer.

After every two pieces added I pressed the triangles back against the seams with a hot iron to keep the fabric flat and to ensure that I wont by accident mess it up when I added the next two triangles.

After every row, I would fold the stabilizer back right on the drawn line I had just stitched to expose the seam allowance and I would trim off the excess.  It created a perfect ¼" seam

This is one of the four finished blocks.  Each block was pieced the exact same way.

After I had my four finished pieces I stitched them together making sure the points matched neatly.

This block will be one of my favourites for this sampler quilt, I enjoyed making it, and love to look at it :-)

Sampler quilt block #5 - Pineapple

Last night everyone went to bed early, so that was a nice time for me to start with my next block - Pineapple.  

I had a lot of fun piecing the block together using the foundation piecing method.  I have never done it before, so I took it slow, making sure to follow each step carefully.  I started out by tracing the pattern on a piece of tear away stabilizer, marking every row by number to make sure I wont get lost adding the strips of fabric.

I did not cut the fabric ahead of time, instead I cut the pieces as I needed them, because I was using 4 different colours and prints I did not want to make any mistakes by going ahead of time.

After I added a row with a specific colour or print fabric, I would fold the stabilizer over to cut a neat 1/4" seam following the drawn line in the front.

As the pattern grew, I was amazed at how 'perfect' the rows were.  I would definitely use this method again, maybe I'll try and come up with a few designs of my own.

Other finished blocks:  

Electric Fan

Stacked Blocks

Tangled Star

Celtic Applique

Applique flower and stems wall hanging quilt

I thought of trying applique the other day, not even knowing which direction I should go, I searched the web for basic application of applique.  Seeing how simple it was I started straight away.  I started tracing basic shapes like circles, hearts , triangles and squares on cardboard.  

Using anything I could find, like different size bottle caps (for circles) I started tracing them on cardboard and cutting them out.  

From there I played around mixing them up, using the sharp edges of the heats and circles I made flowers too.

Even putting some of these shapes together made pretty designs.

That was when I thought of making a small but simple flowers with stems wall hanging quilt using my applique templates.  Again not sure where I will end up I arranged them on a piece of fabric to see the sizes of the flowers and ended up cutting 4, 10" blocks.






I roughly cut a piece of colour printed fabric that I wanted to use for the flowers, stems and leaves and ironed a strip of applique paper to the back of the fabric.  I then traced the designs on the applique paper and cut them out.

I used 3 different colour print fabrics for the whole quilt.

Pulling the paper from the back of the applique, I ironed on the flower making sure I applied the heat long enough to make it stick to the fabric.

Before I started stitching the design to the fabric I pinned a piece of wash away stabilizer to the back, to secure it nicely and to make sure the fabric wont pucker up.

I used a zig zag stitch to secure the flowers and stems to my block.

As this was a test quilt, and I wanted to see what I can do, I tried different filler free motion quilting on each of the four blocks.  Again Leah's designs came in very handy and used Stippling, Wandering Clover, Paisley and Echo-Arches.

Stippling

Paisley

  

Echo-Arches

Referring back to Leah's quilt along #7 I pieced the blocks together using binding strips, following her instructions was easy and I will definitely use this method again


 

I enjoyed playing around with this little wall hanging quilt, and found a spot in my sewing room to put it up.

Flowers and stems applique wall hanging quilt