September Stitching Goals: FrankenBerries, Setting Quandaries + Seven Sisters

Stuffed berry production is happening!  Preparing all 96 of the remaining stuffed berries needed for my FrankenWhiggish Rose quilt is my September stitching goal (and if I get any of them stitched onto the blocks as well, that will be "gravy"!).  

Tip: Pencil Eraser Holds Perfect Circle Template for Tracing

I'm using my Karen Kay Buckley Perfect Circles templates to make my berries (this post contains affiliate links) along with leftover Quilters Dream Poly Select quilt batting and Wonder Under fusible web (using up an old package I had on hand).  I discovered that I can prevent the Perfect Circle template from slipping if I hold it in place with a pencil eraser in my left hand while tracing around the template with a mechanical pencil held in my right hand; that photo above is to remind Future Rebecca of these neat trick the next time I am tracing around small template shapes.

I traced all 96 berry circles onto the paper side of my Wonder Under paper backed fusible web, fused the marked Wonder Under to my batting scraps, then rough cut around groups of 12 (12 berries per block) just to help me keep track of how many were needed and how many were finished.  I experimented with three different pairs of scissors before deciding that I like my ApliQuick 4" microserrated scissors best for cutting out these tight circles (that I probably shouldn't have crammed so close together when I was tracing them).

And So It Begins: Cutting Out Fused Batting Circles for Berry Stuffing

Appliqué prep work does seem to go faster for me when I do it assembly line style, so I'm going to cut out all of my berries before I proceed to the next step of fussy-cutting my larger fabric circles.

Meanwhile, I've been walking past these nine blocks on my design wall every day, marveling about how those broderie perse rosebuds didn't take me nearly as long as I thought they would, and realizing that I am going to have all of my blocks completely finished and ready to set if I just keep working on it a little bit every day.  That makes me want to revisit, reevaluate, and overcomplicate my plans for setting the blocks and finishing this quilt!

I could add one inch diamond sashing, a wide neutral border for a quilted formal feather design, and an outer one inch diamond border, as visualized in this EQ8 software rendering below:

66 x 66 FrankenWhiggish Setting with Diamond Sashing

The New Design Wall, Take 2 + Slogging Along With FrankenWhiggish Rosebuds

Good Morning and Happy Weekend!  We've been bustling and busy since my last post.  Bernie and I drove eleven hours back up to Charlotte, North Carolina to move our youngest son Anders into a new apartment at UNC, spent some time with my mom in South Carolina, and then drove another eleven hours to get back to our new home in Naples, Florida.  We drove him up this time because we needed to get his car up there and we had a lot of stuff we were bringing for the apartment, but we'll be flying him home for breaks.  Meanwhile, the new bump drapery interlining fabric for my design wall was delivered from Amazon (this post contains affiliate links) and Bernie and I are both SO much happier with how it looks now!

96 x 96 Design Wall Wrapped with New Bump Drapery Interlining 

When I posted about the first version of this design wall last week a lot of you thought it was fine as long as it was functional, and if it was in a dedicated studio or craft space in my home where no one had to look at it besides myself, I might have agreed with you.  But I lobbied hard to get my husband on board with putting the design wall in a very prominent, public part of our home where everyone would walk past it and have to look at it all day long, every single day, and I promised that I was going to make it look GOOD there.  

Actual Rosebud Progress for FrankenWhiggish Rose

Good morning, stitchy friends!  I am delighted to report actual PROGRESS on my FrankenWhiggish Rose appliqué project today!  Finishing the rosebuds is my One Monthly Goal for August.

Me Stitching an Actual Rosebud Onto an Actual Quilt Block

(In case anyone's about to ask, yes, that is a serger 3-thread overlock stitch on the edge of my quilt block in the photo above.  I oversized the block backgrounds (so I can trim them all to exactly the same size once the hand appliqué stitching is completed) and overcast the raw edges of my blocks before beginning, knowing that this project would be a long time in the making and that raw block edges would be prone to fraying as the blocks were scrunched up and manipulated in my hands during my stitching process.  The overlock stitching will be trimmed away prior to joining the blocks into a quilt top).

Four Little Rosebuds Where there Used to Be None

Each block gets eight rosebuds around that center circle but I only glue baste four at a time for stitching, to lessen the chance of my thread getting caught on an adjacent unstitched rosebud and ripping it off the block.

New Project In My Pipeline: Seven Sisters or Seven Stars Quilt for Hand Piecing

Inspiration: Seven Sisters Quilt Top by Martha Dellasega Gray (2014)

 

Isn't that Seven Sisters quilt top glorious?!  It was completed in 2014 by Martha Dellasega Gray and you can read all about it on her Q is for Quilter blog here.  I can't help myself, I have to make one, too (or at least START one!).  But before we start talking about the new project, I should do a quick recap of all my preexisting sewing projects for the sake of accountability:

• My StyleArc Nova Midi Dress: Fabric purchased, nothing cut out yet, found my Swedish Tracing Paper but still need to clear off my cutting table before tracing off the pattern pieces and making a start.  Still weighing pros and cons of sizing/pattern alteration options and bodice construction methods, and need a good stretch of uninterrupted time to work on that (I've had mostly fits and snatches of time here and there for sewing lately).
• My Deco Quilt: Remaining blocks for the entire quilt have been all cut out and ready to sew since before the move, but I haven't touched this one in over two months.  I am finding that I really miss having a big design wall where I can arrange/display a work in progress.  Seeing the quilt take shape on my design wall while working on the blocks was a major motivator in my previous studio, whereas completed blocks packed away in the closet are literally out of sight and out of mind.  There is one large wall in the central hallway of our new home that would work for a design wall, just to the left of our shared office and directly across from my little sewing room...  I have suggested a design wall in this location to my husband several times but the idea has not been well received thus far.  😞.  

My Deco Quilt In Progress, On My Old Design Wall, Boo Hoo...