Have you been wanting to make an appliquéd quilt that is beyond the fusible web technique? I have a free tutorial that you can download from my site that explains it fully. But for those of you who like color and photos I am showing you how to do the freezer paper basted method for hand appliqué.

I’ll be using the single block pattern, Moth Orchids, which you can find at this link on my site:  http://www.cottagequiltdesigns.info/catalog.php?item=72&catid=1&ret=catalog.php%3Fpage%3D4%26category%3D1

You can make the pattern in fusible web or hand appliqué but we are using it here to teach you something new and easy! I teach this method to beginners and they like the simplicity of it.

Here is how to make a orchid flower using pink and red tonal fabric, freezer paper, an iron and thread and needle.

Step 1. Trace out the reversed shape of what you want to make on the paper side of the freezer paper. Cut it out on the lines being careful how you cut. What you cut out is what your shape will look like.

Step 2: Iron the cut out shapes to the fabric you want to use. The plastic side of the freezer paper fuses to the fabric. Leave more then 1/4″ between each shape because you will need that much to turn over the edge of the freezer paper.

Step 3: Cut out each shape leaving at least 1/4″ around the shapes.

Step 4: Cut slashes in the seam allowance around the shapes every 1/8″. Cut almost up to the paper edge. For the inside corners around the tip of the two top petals, clip up to the paper. This allows you to fold over the seam allowance at the paper’s edge.

Step 5: Fold over the seam allowance to the back of the petal having the side in the photo facing you. Use a knotted single length of thread and baste the slashed sections down through the paper and fabric. Pleat the slashed sections as you baste around the curves keeping the curve as smooth as possible. Remember to fold the fabric over the paper and not fold the edge of the paper too because this would change the shape of your petal.

Step 6: Baste all the edges of the petals. Press the shapes front and back to get a good crease along the edges. Your shapes are now ready to appliqué in place on your background square. Notice that the slashes at the inner corners of the two top petals are deep and separated when basted.

Step 7: Position the curved triangle-shaped petal first on your background square as shown. Appliqué 3/4 around the shape using matching colored thread. Stop, remove the basting thread, and tug out the freezer paper shape inside. It helps to slide something between the fabric and the freezer paper to break the fusion. Tweezers are great to pull out the freezer paper. Then push in the seam allowance to where it should be and continue appliquéing the shape down. Repeat to add the red petal next and then the two top petals as shown in the block.

Practice this method and you’ll have consistent looking appliqué shapes!

Have you started thinking about Christmas yet? Do you have gifts bought and stored away? Or do you buy after you receive gift lifts from your loved ones? We usually wait until the lists come in though I do have one gift waiting to be made!

I have been designing a Christmas quilt today. After the heat and humidity of summer it’s been fun playing with the colors of green and red and Christmas motifs.  It’s brought thoughts of snow, peppermint candy and cheese balls. But I’m getting ahead of the seasons! We still have fresh tomatoes, apples and pumpkin pies to enjoy first.

So what is your favorite season? For those of you in Australia and New Zealand I believe you are heading into spring instead of fall. How nice to be able to live with spring flowers in the days ahead!

Have a great week ahead! We have the September shop hop starting soon. Be sure to register and join the fun if you haven’t tried it yet. Each shop participating gives out 10 $10 gift certificates awarded by Fabshophop. I’m waiting to hear from the 10 people from the July shop hop. Maybe I’ll hear from you!

How is the month of August shaping up for you? Here in Michigan the weather has been not too hot (in the 70’s and low 80’s) and we have been getting enough rain to keep our lawns green and our crops abundant. Usually this time of year our lawns are brown and waiting for the fall rains to bring them back to life.

August is also the month when our family takes time to pick blueberries to freeze for the year or two ahead. Last week our family did that one sunny cool morning. Our daughter and son-in-law and my husband’s mother went with us to a blueberry farm west of where we live-about 40 minutes away. The dew was heavy on the bushes and our sleeves and toes got wet as we stood in the grass paths and reached into the berry laden branches. We each came home with a filled bucket that weighed around 24 pounds. We had to buy more freezer containers to hold all the berries!

But the best part about blueberry picking is the family time of talking as we work and sharing the sunny morning together. I used to take our children to the different blueberry farms in that area when they were younger and they have memories of playing while friends and I harvested the fruit for our families. And what made it even more special this year was that our daughter asked that we go when she and her husband could come too.

I’ve been collecting signatures from family and friends for a signature wall hanging. Have you made one of these yet? This is the second one for me. The first one was for a challenge with our local quilt guild many years ago.

Receiving the signatures back in the mail, making the wall hanging and picking blueberries (and celebrating our son-in-law’s birthday today!) has made me so thankful for the family I still have left. God is so good to give us loving people in our lives. Hug your family and friends today-reach out to them. You are as much a blessing to them as they are to you!

As some of you know I regularly submit quilt designs to two magazines, Quilter’s World and the online web magazine, Cotton Spice which are published. The October issue of Quilter’s World has one of my designs which is a tablerunner made from homespun fabrics.

What a surprise, last week, when I checked their website to see what’s in the upcoming issue and there I see a photo of it! I knew it was going to be in the magazine but it’s so special when they feature it on the website.

In fact they are offering the beautiful picture they took as a free screen saver for your computer. You can see it at: http://www.quilters-world.com/ Just scroll down the page and click on the photo for the Autumn Cardinals. It’s gorgeous with a wooden table, apples and a lit candle.

The editor asked for designs that involved birds for the October issue. It could be using the flying geese unit, blocks that have a bird name or quilts with appliqué in them. When I submitted the idea and said that I wanted to use homespuns she put me in touch with these fabulous homespun fabrics from a fabric company called Diamond Textiles.

Here is the photo I took just before I sent it off to the magazine. The appliqués use fusible web and black blanket stitch finishing the edges. We all loved it here-can’t wait to have it mailed back!

Now….do I give it away as a Christmas gift or keep it for myself??

I’m sharing with you today a tip I just put in the August newsletter from Cottage Quilt Designs.

Are you happy with the size of the flying geese units when you make them? I’ve been asked by students why the two corners of the units come up short and I didn’t have a good answer until now.

I have found that it matters how you press the seams between the corners and the geese segment. For those of you who are new to quilting here is how to make this basic unit.

To make a 3 1/2″ x 6 1/2″ unit:

1. Pencil a diagonal line from one corner to the opposite corner on the back side of two 3 1/2″ pink squares.

2. Lay one pink square rights sides facing the black print 3 1/2″ x 6 1/2″ rectangle and sew on the penciled line.

3. Trim off the pink corner leaving a 1/4″ seam.

4. Press open the seam. This is what solves the problem of the corners not being full enough. When the seam is pressed open the fabric is evenly distributed and lies flat. It doesn’t pull at the corner.

5. Finish your flying geese square by placing the remaining square on the left side of the rectangle and sew, trim and press open the seam.

Patti Oakley from Batiks by Design sent me a picture of her new quilt using the traditional batik fabrics she imports from Indonesia.

She used my design, Wild Goose Log Cabin, which she sells on her site. She combined rich red fabrics and fussy cut a motif for the center of the wild goose blocks. Beautiful! The picture is below. The link to her site is: http://www.batiksbydesign.com/

I also heard from a happy customer here in my area in Michigan. She bought the pattern some time ago and made the queen size out of rich red, white prints and black fabrics. She donated the quilt to a school in Saginaw, MI for an auction to raise money for the school. She told me that it brought in $800-the highest amount paid that day.

 It’s so exciting to hear what you all are doing with the patterns on my site. The pattern is unusual because it uses paper pieceing for the two blocks. It’s designed that way so that all the blocks end up the same size. Then sewing the center together is easy to do. Jill-if you are reading this-please call me. My emails to you are bouncing back!

 In August we are participating in the FabShop Blowout Sale. From the 18th to the 22nd I will have selected patterns on sale for 30% off. Come on back-I may have a pattern that fits your stash or be a treat for you!

My daughter, Laura, and I have made alot of progress on our story blocks! We are currently working on a story/quilt pattern(s) book for young girls from 5-12 years of age. The first quilt is almost done that coorindiates with Laura’s story. My sister-in-law who is a children’s librarian has seen the quilt and she said she knows two little girls who would just love the quilt! I want to make this a value packed book for you so more quilts and projects are planned. Laura’s story is done and is sure to delight the young girls in your world! Adults we know have read it and they loved it!

We also are working on a story/pattern book for quilters. Laura has written 6 stories in her Tara and Isabelle quilt mystery series. Isabelle is Tara’s aunt and she solves mysteries that involve quilts! Isabelle has a fat orange cat that gets involved too. Hopefully this book with projects will be ready for you by the end of this year. The title is Strangled by Wild Geese by my daughter, Laura Day. Her story has been read and enjoyed very much too. We are so excited to share these stories and projects with you.

Some of the quilters who have purchased my patterns have sent in comments that I wanted to share with you.

Linda from Michigan wrote:

A few days ago I purchased your pattern Swag purse and wanted to tell you how much I like it. I put one together this week out of some fabric that I purchased over in Lansing, MI. I added some beading to it on the main part of the purse.

Roxie from Nebraska wrote:

I got the calla lily pattern today. It was so thoughtful of you to include
the layout & measurements for the king sized quilt.  You have really outdone
other sites when it comes to customer service and I really appreciate it.  I
will definitely pass your site along to my quilting pals. 

I appreciate very much hearing back from you and reading the comments you have sent in for the blog. Keep them coming!

I have a new sweatshirt jacket pattern to feature this week. It’s named Buttons and Baskets. We live close to the water here in Michigan so a sweatshirt is very welcome on summer evenings at the bay.

Do you like button accents? I personally love them and I think it makes the jacket so cute! The flower, leaf and basket appliques are made from felt though you could use fabric if you desire or that is what you have in your stash. I am also offering a kit of the felt used in the sample for $2.50. That can be ordered with the pattern (which is $8.00) for your convenience. You will find the pattern  by clicking this link: http://www.cottagequiltdesigns.info/catalog.php?category=11

There is also another basket on the back of the neckline. This sweatshirt is a medium so larger sizes just have to make the space between motifs a little wider.

There are instructions included to make the red print binding for the jacket edges. I finished the ends of the sleeves in a slightly different way. My jacket seen here is on display in a quilt store so I can’t wear it yet. Can’t wait till I do!

We hope those of you in United States had a great Fourth of July holiday! Ours was spent quietly at home. My husband had four days off but I had to work two of them at the quilt store I work part time.

Two blogs back (two weeks ago) I took you with us on a bike ride on the rail trails we have in our town. That ride took the trails going north and ended at the Saginaw Bay at our state park named Bay City State Park.

In years past my husband and I have ridden the rail trial that winds from the east side of Bay City and over the Saginaw river which cuts Bay City in half. The trail continues on the west side and doubles back across one of our three bridges to head home. We usually do that on the morning of the 4th at 6:30 am when the traffic is dead. But today we decided to take a ride after church. This time we took some of the rail trail that leads south out of town since it was after 10 am and the streets had become much busier.

Here is a photo of the rail trail that crosses Center Avenue-the main street on the east side. This street has many mansions built by the lumber barons that lived and worked in Bay City in the 1800’s. The picture is looking north from which we have just rode our bikes from Essexville (the small bedroom community where we live).

After crossing that busy street we headed down the trail south that led past homes, apartment houses, our main hospital and on to country fields.

We then took two more sections that lead south and then east to the southend of Bay City. This picture shows the rail trail sign that is on M-15 south of Bay City.

The trails were busy today with walkers and bikers. It’s only in the 70’s so it was a beautiful time to get some exercise.

Have a great week!

Rochelle

 Today I have a picture for you that I took from our garden this morning after we got home from church. This is my time to write to you and I was wondering what to say. I had been thinking of color in fabrics and nature and took a step outside to our little cottage garden. Here is an example of what I was thinking of!

In this little patch there are five shades of green in the leaves plus all the shapes the leaves make too. I find the Lord God so amazing. He is our master Creator and it’s awesome how He planned and made living, breathing works of art in nature!

I also find it thought provoking that He can jumble up bright light green, reddish, clear greens and blue greens and have it look perfect. In the color schemes I make and in helping quilters pick out colors at the quilt store we often use only one shade or tone of green. The exception to that is a scrappy quilt, of course.

Here’s another picture I want to share with you! It’s a shot of Ginger, our cat. On that day I was packing patterns of the Calla Lily Day Dream to send to my wholesale distributor, Pattern Peddlers. She loves boxes and curled up to take a nap!

She didn’t stay very long because I made her move to a better place to take her nap.

Rochelle