Dresden FLOWERS...and Some Quilt Doodling

I had a nice long compare and contrast thread post all planned out for you...and when I went to take pictures...my camera battery died.  Lol*  The kids are off school tomorrow so I may  not get to it until Monday.  I will talk about and show you some examples of invisible thread...show you what I have used, how it looks, and maybe you all can share with me some tips or suggestions you  might have too. 

For today - my dresden plate quilt progress.  I showed them to my ten year old daughter last night and her reply was, "Cool Mom.  I'm gonna go play on my tablet."  Turd.  Lol*

I love that booger...man she's becoming more and more like a teenager every day.  It's scary.  Despite her lack of interest last evening I know she appreciates the things I make.  I have tried to give many o' quilt away that she's absconded to her bedroom with because "Mommy you MADE this!!  You can't give this away!!!"  Melt my heart - those kids know how to make me mush.  :) 

I have pretty much decided these must get leaves and some butterflies floating around on it.

I appliqued some of the centers on last night - warning - my applique is ATROCIOUS.  Ugh.  But of course...I can't show you any pictures!!  Lol*  I used the glue stick method - I'll show you in my next post.  This worked REALLY well for me.  Better than any method in the past has anyhow - I've tried freezer paper, needle turn, liquid starch, interfacing, you name it.  I was really hesitant to use glue sticks on my quilt - but - it didn't seem to effect it at all.  I just hope it doesn't turn any funny colors down the road.  I wouldn't use it on a quilt that I intended to enter in a quilt show until I knew a little more about how it will look in a year or so after some love.  Maybe fabric glue sticks would be safer!!!  LOL*  I was determined to work on this and just didn't want to head to the fabric store.  I also want to try using glue with water dissolving stabilizer...that might give me better curves.

Anyhow for anyone who hasn't done these before - just a little tip.  These are pretty easy to make as long as you remember to match up the petals.  Below is a picture...this is where it counts to match up.  Don't  Worry so much about the bottom because that will be covered by the applique.  I was lazy cutting this but you should probably be more accurate than me!!  LOL*  The only issue you can run into with that circle hole being uneven is the applique circle not covering everything!

See - some of mine are REALLY off.  (Much more than this...eep!)  Oh well.  :)

Also it seems to turn out better if you press your petal away from the set you just laid on top of.  Like this...look below...

See how it matches up nice and perfect?  I did get a little shifting and had to resew one or two but not much. Yes, I need to paint my nails.  LOL*

I found the center circle applique to be a little too small from the Eleanor Burns pattern.  I enlarged it all the way around by 1/4" so that I wouldn't have to work quite so hard to match everything up - it also gave me a little "ledge" per say to glue baste the circle to the petals for stitching.  I used invisible thread and a tight zig zag stitch around the circle and am planning to use the same method to applique these to the blocks.  Hopefully they'll be all done and I'll be working on the sashing by Monday.

OH and another thought.  I regret my choice for using the creamy block background fabric for the centers.  It's a nice thick fabric but...OH NO!  The seams show terribly through.  I trimmed back the darker fabric so it would hide a bit better behind the lighter seam, but still, it's bad.  So in the future - note to self - use a darker color or something that's not going to show.  Pooh.

A new little habit I've picked up - doodling.  I cannot wait to get my long arm and try some of these out on it!  My blogging quilting pal Chris from Sewing Junkie and I have been trading inspiring blogs back and forth lately.  One we both have been drooling over is Carla Barret's blog (The Quilt Whisperer!) called Feathered Fibers.  Oh she's all sorts of up my alley with quilt designs and painting quilts!  Among others who have inspired me, she is also a doodle artist/cartoonist and has a lot of inspiration on her blog.  I'd love to take a class from her some day.

Above are some things I've been playing with.  Some of these are Carla's border designs that I was practicing - be sure to check out her policies on use, she is pretty lenient but does ask for credit as she should - and some of them are my own designs inspired by hers.  I took some of hers as "bones" and added my own taste to them.  I'm playing with more elaborate designs but tell you - coming up with whole quilt designs is truly a talent and the more I play the more I gain respect for what people like Carla do.  WOW!  At the same time - what fun!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!  My goal is to get some new items up in my Etsy shop this week to help fund - duh - a few thread purchases.  :)