I've been busy lately...

This is my most recent quilt top that is finished. It was my first experience with a lot of applique. I am so pleased with the way it turned out! It is called "Watermelon Days". I used Moda's Lilac Hill line for the most part.

My first step was piecing the three patcwork/pieced
star blocks.  One has brown points, one purple,
and one green. The one pictured here is the brown.




The next step was to trace all of the applique pieces onto "heat and bond" and then cut all of those out. Then, I had to cut the centers out so things weren't too thick. Then I ironed the heat and bond pieces onto the fabrics and then had to cut eatch of those pieces out--very carefully! I completed this process for all of the applique pieces before attaching anything to the blocks. Once all of the pieces were cut, I peeled off the paper backing and started to assemble the blocks, by ironing them in place on the blocks.

This is the watermelon block. There are three of them that are  exactly the same. After I had the blocks ironed together, I began the machine appliqueing. I used different colored threads to coordinate with each of the different fabrics.

This is the flag block. The instructions for this were very confusing...so I made a few little changes. I really like the way the block turned out. There are corner blocks and three additional blocks--two with three stars, and one that is 4 rows of patchwork squares--similar to the center of the star blocks.

This is my completed quilt top. I am excited to get it quilted. I am going to have it custom quilted on the long-arm maching over at the Ivy Thimble in Victor, NY. I saw this quilt made up on one of the shop hops that included a shop in Watkins Glen, NY called O'Susannah's. It is a cute little shop, and as soon as I saw it, I had to make it! I took the pattern with me to a trunk show at the shop in Victor, so I could buy a couple more fat quarters of fabric and the owner saw it and now they are doing a class in it!