Started Quilting Oak Leaves

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! I've made good progress on my Oak Leaves quilt. This is the quilt that I'm making for my brother-in-law for Christmas. First, I finished the applique on the top panel of the quilt. I used machine applique for the panel. I used C&T Wash-Away Applique Paper for the leaves. I cut the applique shape, fuse it to the fabric, trim away the excess fabric leaving a scant 1/4" seam allowance, then glue the seam allowance to the back of the shape. This gives me a nice, stiff shape that's easy to place and prevents puckering when you stitch around the shape. I used 3/8" bias tape for the vine. I drew the path for the vine on the panel, then glued the vine in place. I had used a long piece of freezer paper to draw the path for the vine and I drew the leaf shape on the freezer paper in an orientation that looked good to me and drew a short stem to the vine. I then used my lightbox to position each of the leaves in the same orientation and also glued a short piece of 1/4" bias tape to make the stem. Once everything was in place, I sewed the applique pieces in place using smoke-colored invisible thread and a narrow zigzag stitch. I then did some free-motion stitching to create the vines in the leaves.

Oak Leaves - Applique Close-Up

The leaf appliques were stiff enough that I didn't need a stabilizer on the back of the panel for stitching those, but there would have been a lot of puckering from the vines and stems without a stabilizer. I used a wash-away stabilizer from /FilTec for this. This stabilizer was really easy to use because it is very sticky on one side so you just cut it to size, peel off the protective paper and press the stabilizer in place. It's a very heavy stabilizer so the stitching was really easy.

Oak Leaves - Back of Applique Stitching

With the finished applique panel, it was quick work to add a narrow border and the panel to the quilt top.

Oak Leaves - Finished Top

Since I'd already pieced the back, now it was time to sandwich and baste the quilt. This is my least favorite part of making a quilt! This quilt is small enough that it fit on my kitchen floor, so I pin basted it there. It only took a couple of hours, but pin basting on the floor is really hard on this old body! But I did order some knee pads that they use in construction so my knees didn't get as sore, but it's still killer on the back and the hands. But I got it done and was able to start the quilting this morning. I'm not exactly sure about how I want to do the quilting so I'm starting by stitching in the ditch on every seam that is between a brown piece and a cream piece. No matter what I end up doing, I know I want stitching there and that stitching will allow me to remove most of the pins, reducing the weight of the quilt for the rest of the quilting. I'm thinking that I want some sort of straight line quilting on one of the colors and curvy quilting on the other color. The applique panel will have quilting around the edges of all of the applique pieces and then will have some sort of background quilting. While doing the quilting, I'm getting to enjoy all of the diverse fabrics that I used in the quilt. I love to make scrap quilts and generally push the envelope when picking the fabrics to use. You can see in the above picture that you get some sparkle from the variety of fabrics, but the colors look fairly uniform from a distance. When you get in close, like I am while I'm quilting, you can really see the diversity of colors and patterns that make up the fabrics in the quilt.

Oak Leaves - Fabric Close-Up

Oak Leaves - Another Fabric Close-Up

Looking at these pictures, you can see that there are a lot of different shades of brown and a lot of different shades of cream. They really don't go together when you look at them this closely. Especially that fairly deep yellow fabric in the creams. But when you step back a little, I think it looks incredible! This is one of the things about quilting that really makes my heart sing!

I also did a little work on my Olney St. Scarf designed by Betsey Sennott. 

Olney St. Scarf

I'm getting really close to the end, but am getting tired of the splitty yarn so haven't been motivated to work on it as much as I should. I'll try to get this done by next week.

But I did go ahead and start a new project. I've had the kit for the Stitchscape Shawl designed by Malia Mae Joseph since last spring. This kit was part of the 2024 Stephen West Yarn-A-Long and I fell in love with it immediately, but didn't have time to start it.

Stitchscape Shawl

The colors just glow and I love that I have this beautiful pink leather project bak (not part of the Yarn-A-Long) to put it in! I love projects like this one with easy shaping, lovely colors and a variety of fun stitch patterns:

Stitchscape Shawl - Close-Up

And the yarn is so soft and bouncy! Since it's getting close to Christmas, I decided to get in the holiday cheer with my Christmas tree needle stoppers:

Stitchscape Shawl - Needle Stoppers

Needle stoppers are used to keep the stitches from sliding off the needles when you put the project in your bag. They are completely necessary, but can save you from a headache and are really fun to boot! This will be my new travel project since I'm to the point with the Olney St. Scarf where I have to periodically weigh the yarn to see if it's time to start knitting the top border.

Nancy