WOW or rather Thursday 19th Feb

Hi Everyone, thanks for dropping in.

Am totally loving Esther's 12 days of Christmas but progress has been slow.
With eight baubles finished and four to go decided it was time to finish my tree blocks and applique them to my background fabric.

I loved my background fabric when I bought it but have had second thoughts about it ever since.

An icy blue with silver metallic snowflakes - and as I am working with gold metallic's will it work?

With my mottled trunk in place I stitched the tree this morning and am happy, too much gold might just be an overkill. Am I going to be a purist and cut out my background fabric from behind my tree, possibly as am thinking of double padding the tree to push it forward.

Went shopping this morning for my batting, for wall hangings I prefer Flieslina H640 iron on and I want to add this now before I stitch the lower applique. I also wanted fabric's for the applique parcels.

Have been unsure about my border fabric as I want to make this slightly bigger than the pattern so it fits the rod where my Faberge quilt now hangs. Looking for parcel fabric I found this border fabric.

I love all the stockings but will it work?

Reduced to this width of border, I love it with my background and tree.

You can see my background fabric better here, I think it is the blue version of the red fabric that Esther used for her 12 Days of Christmas. I will need corner stone blocks to make this fabric work perfectly for my border. Esther your video on charm blocks could be just at the right time for me

I also found the perfect  fabric for my doves wings, just arrived in store and not unpacked yet, I chose the perfect day to go shopping!!! No photo's so that can wait till my next post as I have plenty of prep work to do now.

Linking now to Esther's WOW before I run out if time.

Cheer's everyone, Jenny

Progress on 12 Days of Christmas

Hi Everyone,
My 12 days progress has been slowed down over the last week as my brother and his wife have been in town. They are doing a month long trip around the North Island and have stopped in Whangarei to catch up with us for a few days. Not staying with us as the spare room is still full of everything Lol, but they are spending every evening with us and we are a having a few late nights enjoying their company.
The house is the cleanest and tidiest it has been in months and this is wonderful to enjoy, also the reason for not much sewing.
Thought I would show how I finish my baubles. I can't handstitch well enough any longer to follow Esther's technique so this is what I have been doing.

As you can see I add my batting before stitching my applique. 

Once my applique is complete I use it as my template for cutting the backing. doesn't matter if it is slightly bigger.I then stitch from this side leaving the top open from the edges of the gold top segment which I have not stitched down yet

From this side you can see my stitching with edges trimmed, bottom point cut off and any excess batting removed ready for turning. My finger only just fits thru the opening but having my batting held in place by my stitching as well as being fused, turning is relatively easy.

A little more easing out of the seam needed but top edges have been folded in and then the gold top stitched around with blanket stitch to close the opening.

Have also completed my Milk Maid

Faceless as yet, I'm scared to attempt it but one day I will.

My red background fabric is very vibrant and finding fabrics that work well is harder than I thought.

today I finished my Swan a Swimming

For me the Swan was easy - but the stitching on the wing!!!!

After a couple of days pondering as my free motion stitching is not great I decided to draw the pattern on to my wing with a fine yellow marker,  it wasn't a  gold mettalic but next time it would be.

However with my metallic thread slowly stitched over top I am happy with the result.

so that is 8 Baubles finished, four to go.

The day before my brother and SIL arrived I was frantic, my old dining table topper had to go and is now some restoration work. What to replace it with, a search through my wall hangings found this one from a few years ago. 

Butterfly Garden

My first and only Bargello attempt so far. I picked the colours of the Hydrangea for this quilt, got the pattern wrong as I reversed blocks I wasn't meant to, in the end a totally differnet result with a horrible center 4 blocks from my first attempt at stitching a Bargello. However I learnt quickly and the rest of the blocks were much better. I decided to add Mosaic applique butterfly to hide the center stitching flaws.

Covered a multitude of sins in my first blocks- but looked very lonely so I searched my butterfly patterns for other options.

A foundation pieced butterfly for my middle size.

And an applique butterfly for the smallest size. 

The result on the table was this.

With a vase of artificial  Hydrangea's in pride of place, this looks much better.

This week I am finally in time to link to Esther's WOW so doing so now.

Enjoy your Wednesday, 

Cheer's Jenny