Tuesday, February 11, 2014

California Poppies - Building Blocks Tuesday

Thank you to everyone who chimed in on yesterday's advice request.  I agree, the pink should stay with the pink, and the blue with the blue.  Turns out, all I had to do was ask my daughters.  My eldest has gotten over her need for everything to be pink and has moved on to blue being her lasted favorite color.  She didn't want any pink in her quilt if it could be helped.  Figures.

In today's news....hooray!  I have finished a Star of Africa Bee block!  The houses of San Francisco is also almost finished, so that means I only have one more to go (of course it is the toughest)!  I can't tell you what a weight has been lifted.  I don't like to owe, and it is shameful that I got so behind on this bee.

Here is Veena's block.  She asked for flowers surrounded by a black/white border.  I made her a California Poppy.

CA poppies for Veena

That black & white border fabric is one of my favorites in my stash.  I've almost used it all up.

I also remembered to take some "in progress" shots along the way, just in case someone out there is interested in the process.

CA poppies in progress

1. CA poppies in progress, 2. CA poppies in progress, 3. CA poppies in progress, 4. CA poppies in progress, 5. CA poppies in progress

I started with a drawing of a poppy.  Then I traced the mirror images of the shapes onto a double sided fusible applique paper by flipping my paper over and using my Crayola Light Up Tracing Pad (this thing comes in so handy!).  I applied my fusible to the backside of the fabrics I choose, and cut them out.  I used my light up tablet again with my original drawing, to help me place the stems in the right orientation, fused them with the iron, and then stitched them down with a small blanket stitch.  I then continued the process with the leaves and buds, fused and stitched them down, added the petals and inner buds, stitched them down with orange thread, added the black center, stitched it down with black thread, then finally added the outer petals with orange thread again.

I considered adding some yellow stamens to the flower, but I really liked how it looked when it was all done, so I left it.  Sometimes you have to know when to stop, right?

So, what blocks have you been working on?  I would love to see.  Link up your fabulous blocks.  You put a lot of hard work into them - show them off!  This free linky will stay open until the first Monday of next month, but I will repost it every Tuesday until a new month starts.


Quilter in the Closet

Rules:

1) Please link up only to the page in your blog showing your wonderful blocks, not just the blog homepage.  Flickr pictures are also OK.
2) Make sure to put your blog name as the description so people know where they are going or the name of your block!
3) Please grab my button and post it in your blog post or sidebar.
4) Visit other linky participants!

Thanks for reading!

Jen


3 comments:

  1. Your poppy is so beautiful!!! And surrounded by the black and white. Stunning. Will be fun to see the entire quilt with everyone's blocks!

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  2. This is beautiful, and I love the b/w border that you put with it. Well done, and worth the wait.

    ReplyDelete

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