Stonefields Blocks 26 + 27 "The Semi Circles"

Hello again, my stitchy friends.  I have two more completed appliqué blocks for my Stonefields sampler quilt project to share with you today, Blocks 26 & 27 "The Semi Circles."  I used a prepared edge starch and press method with Karen Kay Buckley's Perfect Circle templates, glue basted the shapes in place with Roxanne's Glue Baste It, and then stitched the appliqué by hand using YLI 100 wt silk thread.  The Stonefields Quilt is a beautiful antique-inspired quilt pattern written for advanced quilters, with very minimal instructions.  It was designed by Susan Smith and you can get a copy of the pattern on Etsy here (this post contains affiliate links).  You know those people who have been sewing clothing forever, who buy a new dress pattern, study the pattern pieces and then just sew up the dress based on their experience and preferences without reading the instructions at all?  If you can do that with appliqué patterns, then you'll be fine with Stonefields.  I was a little intimidated at first by the lack of instructions but now that I'm getting into it, I'm kind of enjoying the extra challenge of puzzling over each block and thinking through the pros and cons of different methods for turning that line drawing into a finished quilt block.

Completed Stonefields Blocks 26 + 27 "The Semi Circles"

My friend Gretchen who is also making this quilt (in a gorgeous blue and white color scheme) didn't care for this particular block design and she came up with a lovely embroidered block alternative that you can see on her blog here.  I thought the Semi Circles blocks were kind of cute and a nice opportunity to showcase some larger prints in my stash, including this pink and green on white floral that I inherited in a small stash of quilting fabric that belonged to my late mother-in-law.  Pink was her favorite color and I think she would be happy to see that her fabric made it into a quilt, especially as this was an intact fat quarter rather than a scrap from a completed project.  Perhaps she thought it was too pretty and couldn't bear to cut into it.  I can relate to that!  

Selecting Fabrics: Overcut Circles on an Overcut Background Square

With The Semi Circles block, there were no instructions given except for the diameters of the circles.  So I put a lot of thought into how I wanted to make mine.  My background squares were all cut oversized before I started my project and normally I would trim the block to size after stitching the appliqué, but I decided to trim the background square down to 6 1/2" first for The Semi Circles since the appliqué goes all the way to the raw edges of the blocks.  I would not want to be cutting through my completed hand stitching when I trimmed the blocks down.

Stonefields "Four Little Stars" Block 24 + Trimming Appliqué Blocks to Size

Hello and Happy May!  I have another Stonefields appliqué block to share with you, the first of two "Four Little Stars" blocks.  It was quite fiddly but I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Stonefields Block 24, "Four Little Stars"

The other accomplishment I'm proud of is that I finally got over my fear of trimming down the oversized appliqué backgrounds on all of my completed blocks for this quilt, and no applique blocks were destroyed in the process!  Now that all of my Stonefields blocks are 6 1/2" unfinished, it's easier to mix them up on the design wall and get a better feel for how this sampler quilt is taking shape.  That will help me make decisions about which colors, prints, values to use more or less of in subsequent blocks.  Stonefields is a sampler quilt pattern designed by Susan Smith, and this post contains affiliate links .

Stonefields In Progress, All Appliqué Blocks Trimmed to Size

I'll document how I trimmed those blocks for Future Rebecca's benefit later in this post.  First, let's talk about the Four Little Stars block.