Dear Diary - Chapter 12 & Borders

Hello Quilters!

I’m so ready to share my Dear Diary Chapter 12 with you all!

-Be Fearless-

I doubt we will ever be free of fear… but the meaning behind this months chapter is really about feeling the fear and moving forward regardless. When I do this, the fear is replaced by freedom… in other words… it feels good!

You will find that the applique section of this chapter is a little time consuming. I made mine using the needle turn method but if you choose to go with fusible it would likely move along quicker.

I used my light box to mark the placement of the applique, including my bias tape…

If you look closely at the applique you should be able to see that I outlined everything in pearl cotton using a back-stitch. It’s amazing to me how much cleaner it looks when you add the stitching… it’s all personal preference though.

I made my own bias tape using steam-a-seam lite fusible tape… it got everything right where I needed it to be for stitching. And I love that I’m not trying to stitch the applique with pins in my way. I added pearl cotton around the bias tape and small circles and I must say… I’m really loving how it came out…

I did have some help this month from my grand-baby Ivy… she’s a sweetie, but she doesn’t have the patience for all this applique lol.

Now… the border!

You might recognize the block that’s used in the border was also used in the quilt… I made mine all scrappy to use up as much fabric as I could… And the blocks worked up faster than I anticipated. I made them all at once, chain-piecing style.

After I sewed them into four strip-sets for each side of the quilt, I top-stitched (within 1/4″) along the side of the strip-set that will be the outer edge of the quilt. I like to take this extra step so that when I’m quilting, the stress on those outer edges doesn’t pull at (and potentially open) all those seams. Just a personal preference that I wanted to pass along… and it’s much easier to do it before the borders are attached to the quilt. Make sense? I hope so!

With the top complete I’m ready to share my quilting next!! I considered having it quilted by a professional but I decided it’s my quilt and I wanted my hand in it… from start to finish – so since I still consider myself a beginner at long arm quilting, I went with an all over free motion design, because that’s what I’m most comfortable with. I’ll be sharing those details soon!