voodoo dolls | Simple Bird Applique

Now that I have the majority of the pieces prepped and pinned to a piece of styrofoam sub-floor, I am ready to start building my block on the background. As you can see I used a lot of pins to hold my pieces in place.

Each time I stuck a pin into the styrofoam, I thought about voo-doo dolls.

(Sometimes its really hard to stay focused!) According to wikipedia, the most popular stereotype of using a voo-doo doll involves sticking pins into it. But did you know that there are different emotions and feelings attached to the color of pins that can be used? I did a bit more research and found out that yellow pins means money and blue pins mean love! Check out the color of my pins!

OK…where was I?

I made another copy of the pattern and taped it to the light box. Then, I placed a background square on the pattern and put a few (yellow!) pins in it. Next, I took a water-soluble marker and traced the seam lines on the background.

This block has lots of pieces so I won’t be gluing all the pieces in place before I start to stitch. I like to glue a few pieces in place, stitch them, and then glue a few more pieces in place. So, I will be unpinning the background square from the pattern, stitching, and then I will be placing it on the pattern again. I use the traced seam lines as a guide to make sure everything is lined up properly.

It can be a little confusing trying to figure out which pieces go where. First I start with the stems.