Teen, I'm sure your quilt borders are going to be show worthy. But, don't add so much that you over shadow your beautiful SBS blocks. (I usually have a problem with that myself. Don't know where to just stop adding.)

The lady I send my quilts to is a LA quilter. (But, not professional.) I did my research on what LA'r's charge and made her an offer on edge to edge (utility quilt quality) quilting. (What I could afford.) She is a fellow QB'r. A friend here. But, has asked that I not pass it along. She is basically helping me get caught up on the quilting of my UFO's. Or, they would never get done. She does simple quilting with her LA. And, I'm happy with that. There is no way I could justify the expense of $500 or more on specialty quilting when I truly would like to have a $500 or more sewing machine. You have to pick and choose your moments. Right?!

But, like Anael said, I am picking and choosing the projects to finish. Life is too short to not be doing what you love. Especially when you have no idea of the end game. The one's I don't, I will pass on to someone else for charity.

Anael, I have never seen a basket like casket. But, it truly sounded beautiful. And, I'm sure your gifted quilt made for a beautiful send off over the casket. I'm glad you made it through the funeral okay.

Riding your bike to all these different historical landmarks sounds like fun. That would not work where I live. You would life in absolute fear of your life with the way people drive. The traffic is very heavy. I live just outside the city of Brandon. Our area alone the population is 103,500. Our state, has a population of 21 million people. But, it is not the area with all the historical landmarks. The part with all the landmarks, I would be in fear of being mugged or worse. Florida has it moments and areas. But, getting to them on a bike just isn't possible. That's why I really enjoy your photos so well. It truly is beautiful. Do you ride your bike with a group or some friends. Or, if alone, are you safe?

Donna Pea, I really like your K9. Is that one a Bears Paw block? (That's not right is it. It seams different then a Bear's Paw Block.) And, I really loved your kaleidoscope block. They are challenging in terms of color placement. Especially in a whole quilt. That's on my bucket list of quilts. And, your fussy cutting of the J10 was spot on. It really makes that block shine.

My mother made a 5 different fabric kaleidoscope quilt for my last baby. It came out beautifully. Although, she sure picked at her faults on it. I loved it. And, the baby wasn't fussed over it.

MacyBaby, if you are not at work, I bet you are in your quilting Shed. How goes the LA'mng. I can't wait to see what else you finish. To be such a newer quilter, You make beautiful detailed quilts. And, your precise piecing is amazing.

Awww thanks Judith!

So sorry you can't ride a bike where you live. We heard bad things about Florida :(

Mostly I'm riding alone and yes, it's safe. A few months ago, when a girl was riding her bike and was raped and murdered we all were in shock. Since that happened I inform my youngest son where I'm going and what time I start my ride. When I'm heading home again I let him know as well. So when he doesn't hear from me he knows something is wrong. That's the only thing I can do without getting crazy about the cruel, crazy world around us.

Once every 2 months I'm riding with my youngest brother. We're always having fun and most of the time we get off track hahaha. Not last time though, we even did a short cut! That never happened before LOL.

Judith, K-9 is Barrister's Block, has some similarities to Bear's Paw. I was not familiar with the Kaleidoscope block, and like how it turned out and how easy it was to do. Getting exposed to a whole bunch of different blocks in this project.

Anael - I too have never seen a basket coffin, but I like it. Looks emotionally warmer than a wooden casket, which can be so polished and harsh looking, or a metal one.

Donna.....as a quilter of only 2 years, 95% of the blocks were new to me. Lol! As a matter of fact, I did my first churn dash block on this quilt...and a week later made some churn dash blocks for a board swap. Lol! I like that block.

Anael....That must have been a beautiful coffin. It does appear less formal and more traditions of home and hearth.

I should have this quilt top done by tomorrow and sandwiched this weekend. That's the goal anyway. When I put the binding on this bad boy, I'm moving to the dining room table to do it. Ugh!

You might like this idea Teen. It's a BOM from another board, years ago. This was my second BOM. It was called Hole in the Barndoor and most USA ladies had a red background. As all - oh well most - barndoors are green here I went with green and hated it. I called it The Green Monster :D.

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Learning appliquick.........I will get there :) Thanks Teen!!!!

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Here's my first appliquick block. Not perfect, still learning to make pointy points. That's hard!

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That looks very nice Aneal! Did you buy the specialty tools for this? I keep debating if they would make a big difference or not. I love tools and gadgets, but the price is scaring me away.

Judith, I may have taken up quilting seriously in 2014, but I have a long history of sewing much more complicated items than quilts. I love quilting because it's so easy!

I have not been doing any LA'ing, and need to get back to that. Right now I've been majorly distracted by the medallion quilt I've started. It's my reward for getting the mystery quilt top done, and all the backings put together.

Thanks Cathy!
The special tools were given to me, I might not have purchased them myself because of the price! I find them specially helpful with the points of the appliqué. I don't know about cirles yet but I will find out very soon :D

Great job Anael. I think the block looks awesome. The specialty tools look like double ended knitting needles to me. I wonder if they would work. The technique looks interesting. I think I'll you-tube it.

Macybaby, I like your "Green Monster". It has character.

Thank you!!
One end of the special tools looks like knitting needles, the other end is totally different. You'll find lots of instruction video's on youtube. I watched one myself to see how it's done.

The Green Monster was mine :D :D I gave it to a Daycare centre for mentally challenged people.

Teen, I am wondering what book/pattern you are using for your Baltimore Album. I would like a pattern that I don’t have to enlarge. I follow this thread because Anael got me going to almost finish my SBS. Still have to do borders.

I have a problem and I hope one of you clever ladies can help me.
I want to cut out some applique shapes and I'm wondering why I have to cut the stabilizer on the dashed line, iron the shape onto the fabric and cut the fabric on the solid line. What's the sense of cutting the stabilizer larger when you don't need the outer part? What do I not understand?

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I still have to sandwich and quilt mine :D :D

We just have to keep working-we’ll get there! ��

Oh sure one day, when I really stick to the plan not to start any new projects until I finished the UFO's....and that's not going to happen!!

Anael, I think that is for raw edge. When I do that, I trace the line on the fusible, but cut the fusible a bit larger. Then I iron it on to the fabric and cut fabric and fusible on the raw edge. This way you get a much cleaner edge than if you cut the fusible exact and then ironed it on and cut the fabric at the edge of the fusible.

If you want to do turned edge, you need to cut the fusible exactly on the solid line, and cut the fabric on the outer dashed line. I'm not mentioning cutting out the inside of the fusible like they show, you'd do that either way if you want to reduce bulk.

I figure as long as my SBS is still in process, I've got an excuse for hanging around. I'm kind of surprised the moderators have not told us to keep the discussions more on track, and not turn this into a sort of "private" club. Though we may be OK as long as we stay on quilting, and don't get too far off on personal topics (and I mean those that should be private, not sharing pictures of the countryside).

I got in trouble many times on the Vintage Sewing Machines section. I don't think the moderators liked that there were a lot of people who hung out there with little or no interest in Quilting. Most are gone to a new board and I visit, but my heart is more into quilting than old machines, so I spend most of my time here.

Back on topic - I bought the "Dance of the Dragonflies" pattern and want to do it turned edge machine applique. My plan is to cut the black for the wings, and reverse applique it on top of the colored parts. Not sure though, becuase that has ton of inside corners which I find much harder than outside corners. Or I could give up that idea and do it raw edge with a narrow satin stitch. Can't do any work on it until I decide which way to go.

Here is what I'm planning on using for the applique. I have a couple of glue pens. I bought one and then when digging through some starter kits I bought with my embroidery machine, found another.

For those of you that own the tools, are these similar in size? One is a small fondue fork, the other is from my candy making tools.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...psjji621vl.jpg

I was thinking the same about not being on track. If there's one thread that turned into a private club it's the Pony Club one.

Here's a pic of the tools:
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[QUOTE=Macybaby;8060510]Anael, I think that is for raw edge. When I do that, I trace the line on the fusible, but cut the fusible a bit larger. Then I iron it on to the fabric and cut fabric and fusible on the raw edge. This way you get a much cleaner edge than if you cut the fusible exact and then ironed it on and cut the fabric at the edge of the fusible.

.That makes sense. Thanks Cathy!

Anael....for your first attempt with this new method, your applique looks great!! Pointy pointy!! Points and curves takes practice. For inside curves, you need to clip around the curve but not all the way to the stabilizer edge. Just enough to give the fabric some give and smoothed edge through the curve. This is no different than what is done with hand applique. For points, I fold the edges on top of each other and then clip the little dog ear off. Some times, if the piece allows, I tuck the dog ear in but that will leave some build so I just clip it off from the back. The point is still turned edge all sides so you are good.

Here are are some pics of the back of my pieces. The first one is a leaf and shows the folded edge after dog ear cut off. The second shows you an inside curve (concave) where I just snipped the inner point of the Y. As you can see, For small pieces, I cut to about an 1/8" seem allowance to reduce bulk along the edge that gathered fabric can cause. When doing circles, grab the fabric a little at a time to avoid points. Then when circle complete, go around again and smooth out the gathers along the back. The beveled edge works best with curves.

Cathy, one of the tools has a beveled edge. This helps with smoothing out edge. The opposite end that is basically like knitting needles is used for points to manipulate the fabric..and any more tiny detail tuck work. The youtubes shows details. The one with a fork look, is used to hold your piece is place as you turn the edge with the beveled tool. Anything, including fingers, can be used for this but it works best with small pieces and you avoid the glued fingertips.

Hope this helps!

Anael.....I'd go with Cathy's explanation of the PDF. Here is the rule with Appliquick turned edge. Cut stabilizer the size of desired finished piece, fuse to fabric, cut fabric around stabilizer 1/8" to 1/4" seam allowance. Voila! This makes it easy because you can trace patterns directly on stabilizer. One catch....when you do this, your piece will be the opposite direction when you fuse to fabric. To avoid this, I trace with the shiny/fuse side facing up. Does that make sense?

edited to add: I love the green monster!!! That is a cool way to use a churn dash block. Very creative. Thank you for sharing.

Suz.....My avatar is one of the blocks from the pattern I'll be using. I made a pillow to audition the pattern before I went to the expense of purchasing the fabrics. It is called Baltimore Garden by Barbara Burnham. The floral's are pretty basic, not really dense in floral's etc. I chose this pattern because of the history of the original quilt that Barbara found in an attic. The actual name of this pattern is called "MEC Remembered". MEC are the initials of the original maker in 1848 found on the original quilt. Barbara, painstakingly, recreated this pattern and used the originals colors to do it. That is what I am going to do, too. Others have used different colors. I just really like the simplicity of this quilt and the history behind it. Good luck...

My SBS quilt top is done! Just clipping threads and getting it ready for LA. This weekend is sandwich time!

Thank you Teen for the explanation and pictures. I didn't know you can clip the dog ears off, that's what bothered me the most. I can practice a bit more as I have to make 25 teardrop shapes. I did use the shiny side up when tracing the pattern. That's what I saw in the youtube video.

Haha, the Green Monster. The inside blocks are 6" finished. I really like the idea, I just don't like the green colour! It's so.......green! :D

When are you going to show us your SBS quilt Teen? Do we have to wait til it's quilted?

Thanks. I’ll check it out.

We will be moving next month and I looked online at the town's library website catalog and they have a copy of Sylvias Bridal Sampler quilt book! Yay!! I hope to join you ladies here soon!

Teen, please share a picture of your SBS quilt with borders! I keep checking by everyday, hoping to see it!

Yeahhhhhh another Bride :D :D :D

NZ....so glad you are joining the bridal group. You will have so much fun. I sure hope your library does long term check out....lol!! Although I did it in 2 1/2 mos, there's a gal on the thread who did it in 3 wks. I can't imagine the sleep deprivation involved in that. Yowza....I was exhausted but had a blast.

I went to my nieces today and spent most of the day so I didn't get to work on backing. I'll be doing that tomorrow. And, I Ordered a King batting of Warm and White and should get by Thursday. Was not in the mood to piece batting from my roll....plus, I worried about seeing the seam through the white top. That means, this baby is going to LA as scheduled. She'll likely have it a couple of weeks...then, I'll FMQ the borders...then special binding I'll be doing (faux flange + something else....hehehe). I have not taken a picture of it yet but I'll do that before it goes to LA. It's on the guest bed still getting snipped......I don't want any threads seen through the front so I'm being deligent....probably over-anal but my heart and soul is in this thing. I'm already emotionally attached to it....Geesh...

LOL that's what I was looking for......long term check out.....hahahaha! NZ, you're going to need that if you still want some sleep :)

Teen........can't wait! Please snip faster LOL. You're good at keeping secrets. I'm sure you're not going to tell us about the binding and we'll have to wait til the very end of your journey. You're going to keep this one, right? Or make a second one?

Some pictures from today's ride. Not that many!
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Early morning, about 9.30 am.

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In my son's garden. Never seen this before!

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Just cute :)

OH wow....such a cutie.....so adorable. Pics of creek and bubble garden are fantastic. Need to print those and frame them. Beautiful photography.

Worked on backing today...big pieces to finagle around. Didn't get any clipping done but should be done in a couple of days. Then pressing this bad boy will require enlisting the help of DH. Yes, I'm going to keep this one...Going to be used in my new guest room, which is one of the reasons I'm trying to get this done before we move.

Lovely pictures of Holland! I would love to visit one-day. It looks just like how I have always imagined it to look, and how my Oma would describe the countryside to me when I was a kid. Sadly she passed away when I was eight, but she often said I looked just like her mother and I could pass as a Dutch girl! Now my daughter looks Dutch too, to the point that I have had people ask me in restaurants if we are from Holland.

Good news, good news!!! So my DH and I were looking on Amazon at some stuff he needs and we needed a few extra dollars in the cart for free shipping. We went on to our 'wishlist' and he let me add the Sylvia Bridal Sampler book into the order, even though it was three times the extra money we needed! Thank you, Hubby!!! So, I'll be joining you, and I'll have my own copy of the book to write notes in!

I'm thinking I'll make it scrappy, with a common white background. So exciting!

Woohoo!! Such a wonderful treat from your hubbie!! Our men are generous with our craft, aren't they? Owning your own copy of this will be great for you...as you said, note taking is a benefit. Plus, it has a great layout in the back that I used to highlight the blocks as I completed them. Kept me organized and many don't really require this but, for me, it kept me motivated to see all the highlighted boxes. Whatever it takes. Lol!

Looking forward to seeing your blocks and cheering you on, NZ... Scrappy w/white will look beautiful. I favor white backgrounds and use it more then off-white or neutral. Are you thinking bright scrappies or a whole pallet of shades?

Yessssssssss, that's great NZ! I wrote the date of completion in the back of the book. Teen, she didn't need that :D :D Scrappy with white background sounds lovely.

Thanks ladies for your compliments!
NZ, please, tell me, how does a Dutch girl look? Blond, blue eyes? :D

Now I'm going back to bed! It's 1.45 am here now.