Piecing and Applique’

Our town is covered with a heavy white blanket as we had our first snow storm of the year in Utah this weekend. Although the skies have been gray I still need to wear sunglasses when I walk the dog because the white snow is blinding. White, gray, and leafless brown sticks reaching to the sky have their own beauty, yet I longed for spring as soon as I received this photograph of my quilt, Coneflower Chain, published in the Spring 2019 issue of Quilts & More magazine.

I used fabrics from the Follow the Sun and Impressions Moire II collections by Clothworks. The burst of flowers on the fabrics is matched by all the flowers on the 21 blocks, making it a very bright, happy, and colorful quilt.

I love the texture of the Clothworks’ Impressions Moire II fabrics on the petals and, luckily for me, I found that nice green with white dots fabric (Riley Blake Designs) or I would have had to applique’ the dots, too! I like it so much I bought a whole bolt!

If I have not yet convinced you that I like machine applique’, here is another try! The blanket stitch is my all-time favorite and my Bernina delivers a flawless stitch. I always use Aurifil 40wt thread when appliqueing and no, I do not use stabilizers. Two months ago I replenished my stock of 40wt thread and I may now have almost every color that Aurifil makes.

The Spring 2019 issue of Quilts & More will hit the stands on January 11 so get ready because it is loaded with fun projects. Quilts & More is doing a Trunk Show video of all the projects from this issue on their Facebook page today at 1:30pm CST. Let’s join in!

I hear the plows going through the snow and ice outside. I get to stay in and play with fabrics. Yeah!

Enjoy your day,