Sunday Stitiching Post #13

In 2019 I was doing the 15-minutes-to-stitch challenge at Life in Pieces and was posting my progress (sporadically) as Sunday Stitching Posts. I am not doing that challenge this year but decided to go back to doing these weekly update posts on my sewing projects as it will provide a way for me to see if things are actually getting done over time. 

I have been doing quite a bit of sewing this week. It has been hot and muggy here in New Hampshire and sewing in the AC is a good escape for me. I worked on quilting my Scrappy Irish Chain. I am quilting it in 3 sections so I can do it on my Janome and I finished the skinniest section and am about half-way on the largest section. This method will require extra binding strips to cover the seams on the back, but has worked well for me in the past to do big quilts. 

Panel appliqued and quilted 

I also did some testing of a machine applique technique to put the leaves on my Tropical Whimsy Quilt. I don't do a lot of machine applique so wanted to be sure I knew what I was doing before I started adding to my mariners compass blocks for this quilt. I had bought a beautiful green batik fabric to do all the leaves with when I started the quilt (10 years ago?) and when I finished the blocks last month I cut out some test leaves and put them on the blocks to see how they looked. I'm glad I did that because I didn't like how the fabric looked on the quilt--it overpowered the blocks. I decided to use the 4 test leaves to make a tote bag (because the fabric is gorgeous, it just doesn't work in the quilt) and that went well. I bought different fabric to use in the quilt and now I am ready to move ahead with that applique and I have the outside panels finished to turn into a tote bag. 

I have also been making masks which are being sold through a local brewery as a fundraiser for the NH Hospitality Employee Relief Fund. If you are also making masks you might want to check out the post at The Sewcialists about a mask-making survey. 

In my blog visiting this week I also came across a very cute block at Making a Lather -- country roads -- which I might want to use for a scrap quilt project.

Overall it was a very productive sewing week.