Deceptively Simple: Stonefields Blocks 28 + 29 "Paper Flowers"

 Alright, y'all -- I finally finished those two little appliqué blocks for my Stonefields quilt that I was prepping at the end of May, and good riddance to them!  Behold, my design wall displaying meager progress:

29 Blocks Completed for Stonefields Sampler Quilt by Susan Smith

Stitching the stems was fine, but needle turning these flower shapes was a wretched and miserable stitching plan that I regretted almost immediately.  

One Stupid Flower Stitched, Beginning the Second One

Not sure how well you can see what's going on in the photo above due to poor lighting in the hotel room where I was stitching (kicked out of my own home while the hardwood floor refinishing filled it with poisonous fumes).  See below.  I made a plastic template for the flower shape, traced around it on the right side of my fabric with a fine mechanical chalk pencil, then pinned with 1/2" sequin pins.  Before pinning the flower down, I did remember to finger press all along the chalked outline to try to "set" the memory of the curves into the fabric.  However, the unwashed Tilda fabrics were horrible to work with for needle turn appliqué.  There is some kind of slick sizing or other finishing on these Tilda prints that makes them want to remain flat and smooth and they fought me with every stinking stitch as I tried to turn those curves smoothly and the fabric wanted to make awful pleats instead.  I can't say for certain, but prewashing this particular fabric line probably would have made it behave much better for needle turn.  Alternatively, I could have used a prepared edge method such as the fused stabilizer method I used for my "Four Little Stars" blocks.  A crisp, tightly woven batik would have been a lot easier to work with, but I am stubborn and I wanted Tilda prints in this quilt, not batiks.  Whatever.  This is how I did it, and it was no fun whatsoever, therefore I limited the torture sessions as much as possible and took an entire month to finish these two piddly little blocks.

Chalked Turning Line, Sequin Pins, Clipping Deep Vs As I Approached Them

They turned out fine in the end.  Maybe if you zoom WAY in and you have your strongest glasses on, you might see a couple spots where a curved flower petal is not as smooth as I would have liked:

Stonefields Block 28 "Paper Flowers"

I suppose I should mention that the slight wavy wonkiness of the stems was somewhat deliberate.  I noticed that my stems weren't perfectly straight as soon as I'd made them (in my experience, that little Clover bias tool makes straighter strips than the method I used this time, sewing over a tube) and I decided to embrace that crookedness as it seemed to complement the style of the flowers.  Had I wanted those stems to be perfectly straight, I would have glue basted them before stitching.  Instead, I secured them to my blocks with pins, knowing that would guarantee against perfectly straight stems.  I used Karen Kay Buckley's Perfect Oval templates to make the flower centers.  And, as challenging as those Tilda fabrics were to work with for the flowers, I stand by that choice because I LOVE how my prints look together.  As usual, I spent nearly as much time selecting fabrics as I spent stitching the blocks.  

Stonefields Block 29 "Paper Flowers"

Something this nitpicky and time consuming ought to look way more impressive than this once it's finished!  Thank the Lord there are only two of these blocks in the quilt and not three.

Hidden Birdies In the Bathroom, But No Toilet

In other news, the remodeling continues at my house and the end is in sight, although new setbacks appear on almost a daily basis.  The photo above was taken with a wide angle because it was the only way to get a photo at all of this tiny powder bath, about the size of a coat closet.  I am delighted that the tile, vanity, sconce lighting, and WALLPAPER have been installed -- especially the wallpaper, which has little birdies hidden in the foliage.  The birdies make me very happy.  There is no toilet because they ordered one with the wrong size rough in, whatever that means, so now we need to wait for a new toilet that is not in stock.  That makes me less happy.  And so it goes!

We are hoping to have this renovation adventure wrapped up by the end of July, and I think my One Monthly Goal for July should be SURVIVING until the final walk through when the builder hands us our keys and leaves with their dumpster and port-o-potty.  All sewing will be for therapeutic purposes, and if some days I need to just come down to the sewing room to pet the fabric and whimper for a little bit, that counts as "sewing time," too.

Hope all of my American friends are enjoying a wonderful 250th Anniversary Independence Day weekend!

I'm linking up with some of the following linky parties:

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs  

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt  

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

FRIDAY

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

 TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework