Joann, it is just fabulous! I love the yellow. I am still plugging away at mine. I have two more leaves to put on, then all of my leaves will be attached. I will work on the berries and the flowers after that. I have had so much help on this blocks from my kitties, that I am afraid I have a few kitty hairs sewn into it.

Good for you, Joann! It looks great!!

Whew. I got my block 1 done. I loved the Margo method. My first time with invisible applique. It turned out great. I used stable stuff, mono poly, #60 microtex needle, and bottom line thread in the bobbin. Setting for my Bernina was from Alex's classroom. I used the Bear Essentials fabrics, the same as Sue's quilt. I am stepping out of my box with all the yellow, but I think it will be great.

Picture posted in BOM Show and Tell.

Joann,aka Quiltbuilder

WHOO-HOO!! Sue, I love the bright green stems!

Progress - I'm making leaves. I finished my vine this morning and am now getting my leaves ready. Margo thanks so much for the tip of cutting out the inside of the leave and marking from the inside. It works so much better. Didn't have an exacto knife but did okay with scissors.

I don't have a stripe fabric planned for this piece but sure do plan on trying the mitering tutorial. The results that have been posted here are fantastic.

SueW
Upstate NY(near Plattsburgh)

Annis, I have just loved looking at the detail in your block. I've clicked on the picture and am just in awe of the perfect applique, piecing, and mitering. I am looking forward to see how you adapt the following months since your quilt is resized. Terrific work, Judy

Annis, I am in awe of your perfectly mitered stripes...very impressive! It's interesting how the mitered stripes give a 3-D effect, with the center block kind of hovering above it. I noticed that same thing in Margo's mitered-stripe block too.

A wonderful quilting room? Got pictures? Hmm.......?

Annis,

It's FABULOUS! I just love it....so fun and whimsical.

I must thank Terry Knott (quilting00) for helping me on Friday learn how to use Superior's invisible thread. I would have given up and used Masterpiece but she just whipped my bobbin case into shape and helped me find the perfect top tension to get it to stitch perfectly. I'm now in the midst of zig-zagging all of my pieces.

Oh by the way -- Terry makes a mean french onion soup that is to die for and has a wonderful quilting room!!!

eileenkny wrote:
The fabric was either purchased in 2002 when I was combining novelty prints with plaids for rag quilts, or maybe even earlier when I was going to use the motifs in cards to sell, which I obviously never found time to do.

I love your fabrics........I especially love the stripes!

I love this!! And I don't think it's more circus than Christmas! GOOD JOB!! Thanks for adding it to the BOM Show & Tell page!

Annis,
I love your hearts!!! OMG, where did you find that fabric? I think it looks "wintery" rather than Christmasy. JMHO. The stripes are perfect.

I've finished piecing the block units for the queen size quilt I started last month and spent most of yesterday doing the quilt in-the-ditch on my Ronald McDonald challenge quilt so I treated myself to a few hours to make my version of this month's block. It took more than a few hours though, but once I got started I had to finish. I think it's going to look more like a circus quilt than a Christmas quilt. I'm picturing circus animals on unicyles when I look at it from a distance! That's okay because it's grown larger than originally planned and will be a lap quilt for my grandchildren instead of a wall quilt. I used Ricky's Stable Stuff for the appliqued hearts and hand sewed them on after the block was complete so they would be easier to center. Thanks Margo for the tutorial on this. Everything else was paper pieced. The block finishes at 10". I will confess that I unstitched some of the corners of the outside striped setting triangles to get them to line up perfectly where they join at the tip of the background fabric. I won't tell you how much they were off. And I did a lot of pinning, basting, and careful positioning.

The first thing I did was print a 1/4" grid horizontally and diagonally on an 11x17 sheet of vellum paper. This is available at Office Depot and comes in a 50 sheet pad, item #345-854. I use it for most of my paper piecing now because it is see-thru, feeds easily through my printer, and tears away easily.

I made separate templates for the 1"x5" strips of triangles. I drew my complete design on the graph paper and basted the center in position so it wouldn't shift. Some of the small triangles had to be preassembled in order to paper piece. I left the paper on until they were sewn to the center, then removed the paper and basted them by lining the edges up with the grid lines so they wouldn't shift. Then I added the background triangles, trimmed the seam allowance to 1/4", preassembled the corner setting triangles, then carefully pinned them in position for sewing with a 1/4" seam. The paper is removed and I'm anxiously waiting for next month when I have to decide whether I want the block to end with the green or let the first narrow strip of yellow show. The next fabric is the black with scattered dots at the top center.