Penny Sampler Episode 3: March

Tadaah, wow, this has been quite a trip, and I'm definitely happy to be finished with this months block adventure.


I was very fond of the little sunflowers (as I said: turn and sew is my favorite) until I had to make the tiny leaves. Hmmm, maybe I should have practiced a bit before on larger pieces...
I jumped right in into the freezer paper applique, cut out the templates, freezer paper templates and fabric, and started soaking the freezer paper with Mary Ellen's best press and burning my fingers on the iron.



I was fascinated of how easy it is to iron on freezer paper pieces to the fabric. I was so enthusiastic that I cut the seam allowance rather short, something I was going to regret with the first leaf I tried to iron. As I said, burnt fingers. And soaked paper. In soaking things I am really expert, which means I soaked the freezer papers so efficiently that they started loosing their shape with the first leaf.



Anyway, at the end the result was rather satisfying in spite of my burnt fingers. Then I tried to peel off the freezer paper and found out that it had fallen deeply in love with the fabric and refused to let go. At the end I had to be a bit more resolute, and finished with four paper shapes that didn't look very much like leaves anymore.
The fussing around with the tiny shapes, the soaked paper and burning my fingers had been really tiring and I was sooo done when my sunflower blocks were finished.

It took me a complete week to find enough courage to start with the vines though I told myself that "practice" is the magic word, and that the leaves would be easy peasy with paperboard templates and enough seam allowance. And ... so it was. I laughed at my fear and enjoyed piecing the vines.

Today I am looking at my blocks that caused me so much trouble for nothing and I am glad I tried the freezer paper applique technique. I know now that we never will be friends and that I will prefer thin cardboard, on the other hand you never know. I think I'll try it again someday, just to see if things have changed.

The fourth block of this month is the spruce forest. This was a quick and fun block (the others are fun, too) and I have been playing with the colors a bit. I like the colors so much that I decided they have to go into the diamond block of the quilt. The background is a soft grey oakshott fabric, the trees are made of scraps.

These are the little applique blocks of the Penny Sampler I have stitched so far. I think there are just two applique blocks to come and I'm looking forward to the next episode in April. 

















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