Holiday Stitching Progress

It was a quiet Easter holiday weekend here at the farm. We spent Sunday morning at a brunch with family then came home and walked the shore. Beautiful and sunny but cool day without wind! Always a great day when the winds don't knock you down.

I finished block no 2 of  Une Annee Dans Les Etoiles. I'm loving this embroidery. Check out Un Atelier de la Montagne to view the slide show of everyone's work.

Once the star was done, it was time to return to Yoko Saito's Quilt Mystere block no 6, the last block in the quilt but only my fourth. If you remember, I skipped 4 & 5 to work on 6 just to be different!

It took me three days to add the church with the house behind it and the lower level houses. Before leaving Los Angeles, I had the top two houses done. There's an error here... the steps leading to the middle level should be going towards the right; I didn't notice until the strip had been sewn to the top level and I left it there until I could decide what to do. I debated long and hard about reversing them but decided to leave it as it is and move on. There are 3 embroidered dogs left to add but I'll wait until all the pieces are applique'ed. I may just add them in the space created by the steps going the wrong way.

I also debated whether to embroider the leaves on the bottom tree or applique them. There are 3 trees with embroidered leaves: top left behind the church and the two at opposing corners. A fourth would have been too many and this one really needed the applique'ed leaves. These leaves are even smaller than on Block no 1.

They are small:

The process for my applique preparation is simple : liquid starch and my stencil burner tip. Since these are so small, I used three layers of freezer paper and added an extra line of permanent marker in order to see the marks for cutting.

Start by painting the liquid starch around the applique: here you can see the top leaf is wet.

The tips are the first to be folded over: this is the stencil burner tip and it's HOT! I use an applique pressing sheet which is great as it keeps my ironing board free of starch and glue. Be aware it too gets HOT which is a bonus as it helps dry the starch.

With both ends done, it's time to turn the edges. This is where the stencil burner tip comes in handy: by running its edge along the seam allowance of the piece, it automatically turns the edges along the freezer paper even on these small pieces. In the following sequence, you will see how the leaf is prepared. 

One good pressing over the whole leaf

Turn the leaf over and press from the right side.

Voila!

That's 4 leaves per dime! Didn't I say they were small?

Our beach is devoid of ice cakes... 

The crows have the right idea... time to stop...

Have a great week! I am linking to The Needle And Thread Network and Let's Bee Social. Have a look at other Works In Progress (WIPs).

Toodles,

Lorette