Rockets Red Glare

LOOK what hit mailboxes

last week!!

The July issue is now out

and yours truly

has a new quilt within

titled, 'Rockets Red Glare'.

THANK YOU Connecting Threads for 

the perfect fabric line,

Hometown Americana II.

It saddens me that so many quilters

feel overwhelmed by applique' 

because, to me, it is such a 

creative and relaxing form of quilting.

Yes, there are sometimes

many pieces to handle but

no more than some of 

the pieced quilts I have seen.

There are times that even I look

at one of my designs and ask,

"who designed all this work?".

Then I realize how much I 

love it and set to breaking

down each task just as you

would do in piecing.

Piecing steps: 

Iron fabric, measure, 

cut out pieces, sew, 

press, trim, and assemble.

Applique' steps:

Iron fabric, trace templates, 

fuse to wrong sides,

cut out, press to 

backgrounds, stitch 

around edges.

Pretty even in my book:)

Plus, once I get all the pieces 

traced and fused to the 

wrong side of fabrics,

I can pop in a fun movie

and cut all the pieces in 

a relaxed setting.

I am all about the relaxing:)

(NOTE in pic above I 

marked each template with 

the color fabric so I couldn't

mess up while fusing.)

These Karen Kay Buckley 

scissors are the Best!!!

Another nice thing about my

designs is that they don't need

to be laid out exactly.

As long as you leave at least

a 1/4" from the seam 

allowance, (1/2"-3/4" from 

block edge) you are golden!

Fireworks every day of the year!

Machine quilting is not really

my 'thing' but sometimes

I have to rely on my skills.

My default is a set of loop

designs that I free motion

over the raw edge applique'

and then enlarge for the

all over quilting fill in

and around my applique'.

Add a quick triangle label

to my corner and Voila-done!

THANK YOU to AQ Magazine 

for another cool layout!