Quiltingboard Forums - Ready to start the applique

Thanks everyone for the encouragement. I've never done anything like this applique before. I look at the Amish quilts and think how in the world do they do that so beautifully? It looks like it would take years to do a quilt.

It's not as slow going as I thought and the vines are especially quick to do, just a long almost staight line of applique. My original plan was to do a vine border around the entire quilt and before I began this part I was starting to re-think that. After working on it I think I can do it.

I'm going to look at the border design again and make it as simple as possible, no big flowers, just the small ones. I have seen some designs that have a little circle on the ends of thin vines so maybe that too. I found an easy way to do the circles, don't know if it's the standard way to do them since I've never seen or read of it being done. I took the little yellow circle and with matching thread I sewed around the edge about a 1/8" in with tiny stitches. I then gathered it until it was all turned under about 1/4" and knotted it off. I worked it with my fingers into a "perfect" circle and applique'd it on. I sat on the couch watching TV and did the centers and sewed them onto the small flowers ready to applique.

I'll try putting the paper on the wrong side. I just remembered something I saw years ago about how to divide a border into equal sections for a design. Take some adding machine paper and cut it the length of the border. Fold it in half, then in half again, then in half again, etc. until you have the size section you want and they will all be the same. I'll see if I can snag a roll at work. I can use it as a template for the curving vines, each section as a curve one way then the other and they'll be the same on all sides. It also helps with making sure you end at the corners correctly for doing a curve around each corner.