Yesterday ...

But first ... !

My Love Entwined - I'm starting to applique the leaves on Part 4 and have the stems and some leaves done for Part 5. I really wanted to do Broderie Perse for the flowers and leaves but the fabric I purchased just didn't look right to me. Instead, I'm fussy cutting the flowers and leaves for the applique. Because I set my LE aside to work on Phebe, I'm at least 5 parts behind and still have pieces to finish for earlier parts.

Connor's Bungle Jungle quilt is finished and is on its way to him.

I quilted it with topstitching thread which gave it the effect I like. Unfortunately, there are a lot of not so straight quilting lines. My other learning moment - I should have used a polyester batting instead of the cotton batting. It was very evident after I took it out of the dryer that this quilt will never look this smooth again unless its ironed.

Other news - My Selvage Star of Bethlehem has gone to Jan, the machine quilter. The fabric I chose for the backing is the red and white leaf print in the picture below. I tried to straighten those pointy corners but decided to see what they look like once it's finished. Maybe (likely) I was just really tired the day I made that decision and decided not to mess with it!

Do any of you read the magazine, "Quilt Life"? I normally don't but was glancing through it at Barnes & Noble and was surprised to see the vintage inspiration quilt on P. 78 of the May, 2014 issue! I had been making my selvage version based on an internet picture so it was interesting to read more about the original quilt. 

OK, so yesterday ...

Can you guess?

Until next time,

Mayleen

A Week with Phebe

Here's my progress after one week of working on the center panel of Phebe!

Its definitely been a challenge already. I haven't had much experience with applique but if I had waited until I felt more proficient, I probably would never have begun this quilt.

Points on the leaves and flowers are a particular challenge right now but I think they will get better with experience. By the way, some of the leaves had been stitched down before I stood back to see if they were improving. Yes, they were except I hadn't realized there isn't enough contrast between the stems and leaves. In the back of my mind, I'm already planning to cut new leaves and start over. There are 34 leaves in this part so I'm glad I hadn't stitched them all down already!

Color and fabric selection are the two big frustrations. Those pink flowers may look bright to you but in reality, they're subdued compared to the fabrics I usually use. I'm trying to use softer colors in Phebe because I admire their antique look. I'll probably mix some contemporary fabrics in but I'd like the majority of the fabric to look "old". This is where my problem lies, other than some Jo Morton fabrics I don't have many reproduction fabrics. I've been auditioning fabrics for the blue flowers and red vase all week and not being satisfied. The light teal hill is not an easy fabric to match.

So, tomorrow I'm taking a road trip to Quilter's Station in Lee's Summit, Missouri. This quilt shop has, in the past, had a better selection of reproduction fabrics than any of the 5 quliting shops in the Wichita area. In my next post I'll let you if I was successful in my fabric search or not!

Have a very happy Easter!