Hello my lovelies. I hope you’ve all had a great day. I spent my day mooching about doing this and that. There’s always a few household chores that need doing. I filled and ran the dishwasher, walked the dog and tidied a few things away. Everything is swings and roundabouts; for every one thing I put away, I pulled out a Quilts for Comfort quilt top to meet a challenge.

I have set myself a challenge. I plan on getting these few quilt tops longarm quilted before my next Burnopfield Belles meeting in a couple of weeks.

These quilt tops were pieced by our wonderful volunteers. I will turn these scrappy quilt tops into proper quilts ready to be handed over in order to bring comfort to young people. I’m so pleased that there are other ladies who help in whatever capacity they can in our quest to bring comfort when it’s needed.

In between chores and mooching about, I decided to prep a couple of blocks for my Moving Forward quilt project. While I was tracing templates onto freezer, cutting out the freezer paper shapes out and ironing them to the back of my chosen fabrics, I had plenty of time to breathe and think. Life is so very different today than it was two years ago. The stressed-out person I was back then seems to have disappeared. I feel so much better today. All the uncertainty has melted away and I’m back to the happy old self that I always was. My creative juices are returning and my enthusiasm is back two-fold. I started drawing the layout for Moving Forward two years ago. I think it’s time to get it pieced, longarm quilted and enjoy and explore the patches I have lovingly sewn into it.

The prep work for my appliqué work is just as much fun as the actual sewing. I enjoy choosing what fabric colours to use and every other bit of the prepping process. There was a time I stayed away from fine hand appliqué work because I thought it was too involved. I have learned so much from my preferred method. One of the best things I have learned from the process is patience. Hand appliqué is such a lovely quiet technique. Here’s a little peek at my prepping process.

I trace the templates that make up my picture onto freezer paper …..

Cut out the freezer paper shapes on the traced lines and iron on to fabric …..

Notice that I leave a ¼” margin of fabric when I trim it up. And the last thing is to choose the background fabric. In this case, I am using different fabric from a collection giving it a scrappy feel.

I’m hoping to start the sewing part of these two blocks soon. I have plenty of other blocks to draw and decide on for this particular project but I’m so pleased with the progress so far. Being creative is the perfect way to keep your mind occupied and also for working things out.

So that’s my report for today. I have had a superb creative day. I’ve played with my favourite bits of fabric and tidied a few things away. I’ve found inspiration in places I never thought I’d find inspiration. And I have formed a plan of action for my latest challenge to longarm quilting a few more charity quilts. I live a simple life all the while trying to keep out of trouble.

I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something creative. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching.

Lucie x