WIP Wednesday and a QuickTip

I've got a terrible cold so I don't have any monumental progress to report today.  The only large move I've made on Vintage Charm is I finished stitching down the bias tape around the border.  I ran out of adhesive so I basically traced a line two inches from the edge and tried to align it to that by eye - never again!  It came out all sorts of wonky and that adhesive, though expensive, is worth every stinkin' penny for the accuracy and neat factor alone!  I think I can work around it...I'm going to add beads and lace to the border so hopefully that combined with trapunto will help give the optical illusion of perfect lines.  LOL  In any case I'm thrilled to say that my goal is to have this baby loaded on the frame for quilting TODAY!!!  That gives me about three weeks of quilting time before I start customer quilts again...and of course taking a few days out for Christmas festivities.  Woot and JUKI TIME!!!  LOL  :)  I'll need a good solid day or two of play with the Juki too...hehehe!  :)

So my tip for today and a shot of my WIP!  I have found for me, the easiest form of applique seems to be to cut out the shapes I want to use out of freezer paper, pressing it to fabric, then turning the edges under and adhereing them with a bit of glue from a glue stick.  I'm still perfecting applique and getting better at it all the time, so when I get a free day I'll do some tutorials and show you what I've learned.  In any case, the only downer to this method...the glue sticks....REALLY stick!  It can be difficult at times to remove the paper from the back, especially if you have tiny pieces. 

One thing I found that really helps the process go faster, is after you have stitched down all of your applique pieces, to spray them with a little bit of water to loosen up the glue.  Let it dry, then cut your slit in the back of the quilt and remove the paper.  It makes things EASY PEASY!!!

After this top dries I'll flip it over and cut a tiny slit behind each applique and remove the paper with tweezers.  I'm psyched to be almost finished with this quilt!!!  Hopefully the next pictures I show you will have some quilting in them!

Have a great Wednesday!  :)