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!

You can find the pattern for this quilt in my shop…

CLICK HERE FOR THE PATTERN

Thanks to all of you who followed along on quilt journey this year! Happy New Year!!

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