Works-in-progress

Here's the progress of my first mini-quilt, which I first posted about here. As I mentioned before, this is inspired by a quilt found in the book Bits and Pieces, which I really like. This is my first time doing freezer-paper appliqué. The author's method is to iron on the freezer paper circle; trim the fabric to a 1/4-1/8" seam allowance; do a gathering stitch in the seam allowance; baste through the front, freezer paper, and gathered seam allowance; stitch the circle to the square; and pull out gathering stitches, basting stitches, and freezer paper before stitching down the last inch or so. Phew!

I followed this method for the first couple of circles, then decided it was too laborious and used too much thread. So I followed the directions through the gathering stitch part, then ironed the circle and really pressed the edges so the fabric would stay put. Then I stitched it to the square and removed the gathering stitches and the freezer paper with about an inch left to stitch. This worked out very well and saved a bit of time. I was even able to press the circles and leave them for another week before stitching with no loss of shape. Now I'm working on hand-stitching the blocks into rows, and then the rows into the top, sans border. Surprisingly, the rows are coming together very quickly. I may actually have a completed top soon!

Here is another WIP that I just started on Sunday. It's going to be a slightly modified (mostly just for size) two-sided version of the "Little Bits" quilt from Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts. And it will, indeed, be a quilted gift! I'm a little concerned that the intended recipient won't like the fabrics, and I've never done a project like this where I only use two fabrics, so it'll be a little adventure for me. I just hope it works!!