finito!

Alrighty then! I finished up my second block last night. This one was completely my design. I had a little help with the scooter block design though :).

For the "tulip twist" block, I wanted to try my hand at the applique where you turn the raw edges under, so there is no fusible web on the fabric. As far as I can tell, it's like needle turn, but with an iron, and sewn with a machine. I actually got all my tips for doing this from Pat Sloan's book, Pat Sloans Favorite Techniques. I cannot recommend this book enough. She not only goes over the how-to's of applique, she tells you what her favorite products are and why.

I'll let my block speak for itself, this is my first hand at doing applique like this, and I'm very pleased.


Basically, to make this block I cut out the shapes and used my clover craft iron with the mini head on it to press all the little pieces with some light starch. I then used some "glue-baste-it" to tack all the pieces down where I wanted. (this product is ESSENTIAL! There is no way I would have been able to get perfect placement by pinning all those little bits down with straight pins. And since I didn't want to have the extra stiffness of the webbing, this product really impressed me!!) Using a straight stitch, I stitched very close to the edges (I don't typically do hand sewing unless it would save my life or the life someone that I love! :))

I also wanted to give just a few tips on my scooter block.


I did this with raw edge applique, so there has to be a fusible webbing on the back (I guess so the fabric won't fray too much?) Anyway, the product I used that made the biggest difference for placing all the pieces for the scooter, was "The applique pressing sheet". I have had mine for years, and don't know when, why, or where I picked it up, but this was the first time I used it, since this is the first time I've done applique. It's so awesome because you fuse your pieces together on the pressing sheet instead of your background fabric. As you're fusing the pieces together, if you don't get perfect placement, you can peel the piece off the mat and move them!!!! I had to do that a couple times so I was very grateful I didn't just start out by fusing the pieces to the background fabric where I couldn't have moved them.

So thank-you so much V for putting this all together! It pushed me to finally try applique and stretched my thought processes for sure! I'm very excited that through a little research and with a little skill, I CAN do applique, it's not that hard. Just a little tedious and time consuming!

~Penny