Bed of Roses Quilt Along | Simple Bird Applique

A few of you asked if I could do a little tutorial on how I prepped that centre piece in the third block of “Bed of Roses”. As always, I am happy to share this with you!

First, I always use 2 layers of freezer paper to make my templates and I iron it to the wrong side of the fabric.

I trim the seam allowance to less than 1/4″, even in the inside curves.

Now I need to clip the inside curves. By the way, I never clip an outside curve. Never!

I have drawn lines where I will clip. (I don’t really draw the lines before I clip them, I am just showing the position of the lines.) Notice that the lines are always perpendicular to the freezer paper.

It is very important not to clip right to the freezer paper. I like to leave about 1/8″.

So now, starting at an inside curve, I apply liquid starch to the seam allowance and pull back the seam allowance with my left hand….

…..then I pick up my mini-iron and iron the seam allowance.

And now, if I did not have the camera in my left hand, I would pick up my stiletto and pick up the mini-iron with my right hand and start to press the seam allowance over the freezer paper.

If really just takes a bit of practice! Here is what it should start to look like.

Once the piece is completely prepped, I add a tiny dot of glue to each outside curve.

And now I am ready to stitch the piece in place!

Til next time….

Kerry

I really wish I had more to show! I have been working away on my hexie quilt and loving every moment of it. The top left corner is almost complete, then I will continue the dark brown border and then…well who knows? This quilt seems to be designing itself! My only goal was to use up all 5 meters of the beige background, which I have had in my stash for 8 years…8 years! Seriously, it’s time to let go!!

I have finished all of the background stippling on the eagle block of my “Friends of Baltimore”. Turns out stippling is very relaxing, soothing and almost hypnotic. Time stands still when I work on this block. Still not sure what I am going to do with those triangles…..

Because the background is so heavily quilted, everything pops out, like the flowers and leaves, which I love because it almost looks dimensional! The eagle is a little baggy and needs some quilting. So, this is the “before” picture and in my next post you will see the “after” picture.

Life is short and we are not supposed to sweat the “small stuff”. So, I am not going to worry about the cat hair anymore. I just purchased a bulk package of lint rollers and I am making really good use of them!

My new and improved website is still under construction and hopefully will be ready to launch the end of next week. You have probably figured out by now that I am a huge fan of Sue Garman and her wonderful applique patterns. So, I will be selling some of her patterns on my website. And, I will be doing one of her patterns, Bed of Roses, as a Quilt-Along, complete with fabric kits! Last night I prewashed the fabrics so I could get started on the first block. So exciting!