It’s been a busy month!

Last month I had the pleasure of teaching 18 eager students at an all day workshop for the Moraine Quilt Guild in Newmarket. As you can see, it was a very productive day! The project the class worked on is the Hummingbird in Flight pattern which is available on my website here. The pattern comes complete with the freezer paper templates already traced so you can start prepping your pieces immediately! Such a time saver.

I taught the same Hummingbird in Flight pattern at my Spring Applique Retreat held on April 23-25 at Fireside Retreat in Orillia. I think it is fair to say we did as much eating as we did stitching! The breakfasts were catered by the owners of Fireside, Emma and Julien. And the cake was made by Holly’s Sweets and Eats in Barrie. It was gluten-free!

Diane managed to get every single one of her pieces prepped and glued in place by the time we left. Amazing!

Hard at work!

I even managed to get my own block completely stitched. It is in the talented hands of Rose Bell of Fancy Feathers. Can’t wait to see what she does with it.

Starting today, I will be doing an ongoing Tutorial for a new series of patterns I have been working on for the last year or so. The series of 13 patterns is called “Glorious and Free” which will be based on the official birds and flowers of each province and territory in Canada. The patterns will become available on my website as I get them completed (the pressure is on!). You will recognize the first pattern, “The Chickadee and Purple Violet”. All 13 of the patterns will include a full-sized pattern and the freezer paper templates already traced for you! As you can see, each pattern piece is labelled and there is a corresponding freezer paper shape. So half the work is done! By the way, the Chickadee and Purple Violet represents New Brunswick and it measures 19″ x 25″.

So, the first step is to iron each sheet of freezer paper (with the templates already traced) onto a blank sheet of freezer paper. This step creates a thicker template than just one sheet of freezer paper. Did you know that you can reuse your FP (freezer paper) templates up to 10 times?

Freezer paper has 2 sides. One is a paper side and one is a shiny side. Place the freezer paper (with the templates traced on), and a blank sheet of FP with the shiny side down.

Next, place the traced FP on top of the blank one. This step will prevent you from putting shiny side to shiny side.

Use a hot iron to fuse the 2 sheets together. Do not use steam (the sheets will not fuse together properly). Once the 2 sheets are fused, lift them immediately from the ironing surface. Now you are ready to cut out your templates. This is a good “sit in front of the TV” kind of job:) I like to cut my templates right on the line (as opposed to inside or outside the line).

Keep each “group” of templates together. I like to keep mine in separate zip lock bags to save my sanity. G1, G2, G3 etc. all refer to different shades of green. G1 is light green. G2 is medium green. G3 is dark green. So each “group” is a different fabric.