Hello, everyone.
There is a UFO (UnFinished Objects) box in my sewing room. I pulled out something that was at least 80% done yesterday, after finishing the little oblong pouch, and now it is done too. I feel so liberated!
This is from the Sweet Pea online catalog:
As y'all can see, the Spring table runner was made a while back. Today, after quilting the edges of the blocks and adding an "American Beauty Rose" print fabric binding, the Summer one is also done. It had only been sitting around for at least a year--the first letter was done in an embroidery class at the A Block Away quilt shop.
I like the instructions that Sweet Pea includes with their patterns, they're clear and have pictures to help with anything confusing. I don't have to open the file in my embroidery software and "watch" it stitch out on screen to try and guess when to put a piece of applique fabric under the needle, and they also tell a good size--even a generous size--to cut the applique pieces out. I'm not likely to start stitching something with too-tiny fabric bits that way.
The one thing I differ with them a little is that I prefer not to trim the batting close on each of these rectangles until the applique is done. It seems to me that my machine doesn't quite stitch as straight going around the rectangle on the first fabric tack down if the batting isn't equally tall on both sides of the previous (batting tack down) line of stitching. It's not like leaving the excess batting there will cause problems, at the end of making each rectangle it comes out of the hoop anyway and that's a good time to trim extra batting away.
