Citrus Sweet Love BOM 2

I'm still lovin' my Citrus Sweet Love.  Well, and learning lots too.  This month was all about flying geese (never done before) and needle turn appliqué (never done before).

And now I can give them both a big ole tick off the list. 

First, flying geese (they're the little triangles each side of the centre rose block).

Hello pretty fussy cut rose

Those points aren't quite perfect, but they're not too shabby either.  There are, like, a million billion tutorials on how to do flying geese, so I won't bore you with the details.  I just followed the cutting instructions I got sent and focussed on getting a proper scant 1/4" seam.  That seemed to work just fine.

Secondly, needle turn appliqué. The lesson here - spend two minutes looking for a free YouTube tutorial BEFORE you spend hours on it.  Durr. Apart from the centre circle (which is pretty spot on, even if I do say so myself) I used a sort of whip stitch to sew the fabric down. It took hours. and. hours. one evening, peering at it while watching Game of Thrones (SPOILER ALERT: we got to the end of the series and they still haven't killed off Joffrey.  I mean, honestly, how long can they drag it out?). And despite all that time, you can still see my little stitches.

In the morning, I got up to do the blue centre and thought I would look at this tutorial. Epiphany. The centre circle took me about 10 minutes after I had pressed it and the stitches are basically invisible. Despite my general spazziness, I still think the block looks okay, and there are five more applique blocks in the quilt for me to practice on.  So it turns out that needle turn applique is not the devil.  In fact, it's pretty simple - try it.  Go on!

Hello first ever appliqué

To press the centre circle perfectly - I used a technique I watched in a Craftsy tutorial.  You cut a thin cardboard template into a circle and then use a piece of tinfoil to fold the fabric (cut 1/4" bigger than the template) around the cardboard and hold it in place.  Then you can press the tinfoil with the iron (hot, hot, hot).  When you take the tinfoil off you have a perfectly pressed circle with its seams all tucked under to use.

I used a little blob of my EPP glue in the centre of each bit of fabric to hold them in place while I sewed them.  It worked great.  No getting the glue near where you want to stitch though. That = sad face. 

I also finished another of the pinwheel blocks we will be placing around the sides of the quilt. I'm going to do one a month until they're done - there are 10 in total (8 to go now).  So, excluding the pinwheels, this is where I'm at:

July - pieced block

August - pieced block

August - applique block

I would never think to put these fabrics together, but I think it's going to look great when it's done. Bring on September!

Howdy WIP Wednesday visitors.  It's nice to see you!