A winner and another block

The only downside of having a giveaway is all the lovely people who didn't win, it makes me sad but I'm happy for the one who wins and that is.......

**************Juliann*************

From Lining up my stitches

Congratulations Juliann, this quilt will be winging it's way to you today! WOO HOOO!

Thanks to everyone who has added their name to my follower list and also to the wonderful comments left on my last two posts, I truly appreciate the time it takes and I feel quite humbled by all the lovely motivating words you leave me.

So this week there's been a few disruptions to my sewing time but I did manage to get this Mary Mannakee block done.

I don't know if it's helpful or not but I'll share anyway. When you have an applique pattern, it's assumed you'll have enough knowledge to know how to tackle the parts and in these blocks, sometimes you have to think about it.

I know the leaves are tucked under the stem so to keep it all lined up nicely, I tacked the stem on first through the middle so I could tuck the bottom of the leaves in.

This bloom had to be replaced because I sewed the wrong parts together but you'll get the idea. I stitched this one off the block as one unit. I left some seam allowance free at the tops for tucking in later. This way, I can trim out the seams at the bottom which would be bulky and sew the bottom as a smooth curve. Check out the finished block.

Two leaves have to fit across the bottom of this piece so to make sure I didn't have a ravelling skinny and unstable seam, I ticked it under and it makes putting the leaves on stress free.

I then finger pressed the leaves before placing both of them for stitching down. That way I can check that they meet just where I want them to.

I hope this is helpful to some of you, sometimes with applique, you have to analyse the sequence and methods and theres always more than one way to tackle needleturn but this is a peek into how I do it.