Wednesday 6 March 2013

A Tale of a Dogs Sad Tail and an Applique finish

 Have you ever seen such a sad tail?  The last couple of times I've taken Harry to the Dog Groomers he has been so distressed that Jill has been unable to do anything with him.  I have spent the last 6 months trying to keep his coat under control, and not doing a great job.  Cutting his coat with a small pair of scissors is very time consuming and his ears and his tail were in a very sad state.  His face was very shaggy and overgrown.  We decided to try Jill coming here and doing some clipping slowly,  hoping he will get over his anxiety.  The first week Jill came and clipped the hair back on his face so he can see again and he looks heaps better.  This week Jill came and tackled Harry's ears and his tail, they had to be cut right back.  His tail looks so funny but it's still working just fine.  Another couple of weeks and the rest of his coat will be done.  He'll be a new dog :)
We are in the middle of a heat wave.  It seems like we have had weeks of days over 30 degrees.  I'm so over the heat but there are still another 5 days or so to go.  Despite the heat I've managed to do a little bit of stitching.  I have finally finished the applique on my Flowering Vines quilt.  I can't remember exactly when I started this but I think it's about 6 years ago.
The colours are a lot more vibrant in real life.  I haven't done the strip piecing that goes in between the flower blocks, I've started cutting the strips and might get a start on them on the weekend.  You know how I love me some string piecing, I just hope it all fits together in the end.
 Some closeups of a couple of the blocks.  I would do things a bit differently now than when I started this top.  The background fabric in the 4 vine strips is not a very good quality, back then I didn't really think too much about the backgrounds.  Now when I know how much time and work
 has gone into the applique I think it's important to use good quality fabrics.  We're always learning right? 
Here you can see the back of one of my blocks.  I used the back basting method which worked okay but it was quite time consuming and I wouldn't do that again either.  I enjoy needleturn applique but when I started my stitches were way too small, can you see how small they are?  I couldn't work out why I was so slow, I'm still not speedy but I've improved.
I was very lucky last week to win a prize from Lori at Humble Quilts, some pieces of woollen fabric.  They arrived today they will add nicely to my stash.  Thanks Lori, I do like working with wool.

I'm itching to reorganise my fabric stash again.  It's always fun to rediscover what's in there.  At the moment I'm storing fabrics from ranges together and my favourite designers together.  I don't really like making quilts that just use one range, so I'm thinking I need to just sort my fabrics into colour families instead.  I think being able to see at a glance how much of each colour I have will be a good way of resisting the urge to buy more.  Any thoughts?

Till next time. Happy Stitching,

Debra.

1 comment:

  1. Congratulations on your wool win--I've never tried wool, but I like the look. Your applique is really pretty, and 6 years seems reasonable to me! My fabric is sorted by color, but I rarely have bought groups (except lately) Most of my fabrics are sorted by color. I do pull fabrics for specific projects that I keep together--in a bin or drawer. The few fabric groups I've bought together I keep together until I decide how I will use them, then they may get sorted by color. It works for me, but sometimes I have a hard time finding a particular fabric when it is "filed" with a project instead of by color--a problem since I've too many in process projects!

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