Actual Rosebud Progress for FrankenWhiggish Rose

Good morning, stitchy friends!  I am delighted to report actual PROGRESS on my FrankenWhiggish Rose appliqué project today!  Finishing the rosebuds is my One Monthly Goal for August.

Me Stitching an Actual Rosebud Onto an Actual Quilt Block

(In case anyone's about to ask, yes, that is a serger 3-thread overlock stitch on the edge of my quilt block in the photo above.  I oversized the block backgrounds (so I can trim them all to exactly the same size once the hand appliqué stitching is completed) and overcast the raw edges of my blocks before beginning, knowing that this project would be a long time in the making and that raw block edges would be prone to fraying as the blocks were scrunched up and manipulated in my hands during my stitching process.  The overlock stitching will be trimmed away prior to joining the blocks into a quilt top).

Four Little Rosebuds Where there Used to Be None

Each block gets eight rosebuds around that center circle but I only glue baste four at a time for stitching, to lessen the chance of my thread getting caught on an adjacent unstitched rosebud and ripping it off the block.

I pulled out my rosebud supplies at the kitchen table while the Olympics women's gymnastics was on TV and got to work.  I quickly abandoned the idea of using my iPhone as a lightbox and pulled out the big LED lightbox I bought on Amazon a few years ago (this post contains affiliate links).  The maddening thing about trying to use my iPhone as a lightbox was that I have it set to some kind of night mode thing that makes all of my app backgrounds black with white text once the sun goes down.  It was faster to just walk to the closet and get out the light box than it would be to try to find the place in my phone settings where I could turn off the night mode while tracing applique.  By the way, when I popped over to Amazon to get you that link just now I was amazed by how much the LED light boxes have come down in price since I bought mine.  The one I have now is an unwieldy 13" x 17", useful for tracing entire quilt blocks, but I might pick up one of the smaller ones just for smaller tracing tasks like my rosebuds, since as of this writing the 9.5" x 11" LED light box is only $10.99 (with free Prime shipping to boot).  Didn't light boxes used to be really expensive?  Well, at least the price of something has gone down instead of up!

Rosebud Prep Supplies

In the photo above, you can see the sheet of Jeanne Sullivan's Patchback leave-in product that I'm using for my rosebuds on the left.  I still have almost a whole pack of these papers left and haven't been able to locate them recently, but I think that it's the same kind of stuff that Mark Sherman sells for his Remarkable Appliqué method.  Sorry I can't fine you a link for either product!  Since the only light box I currently own is so big, I decided to go ahead and get all of my tracing out of the way first.  I traced all 44 rosebuds onto the Patchback stabilizer product right-side up on my lightbox, one bud at a time since the rosebuds in my fabric print are not identical, and then carefully cut them out with my microserrated 4" Appliquick scissors.  These scissors are pricey but they are awesome because the blades close tight and sharp for a clean cut all the way to the tips and the microserrated blades help to grab the edge of the fabric or stabilizer you're cutting for control of tight, smooth curves like my rosebuds.  After cutting out each rosebud shape, I glued it to the wrong side of the rosebud fabric and moved onto the next one.

Patchback Stabilizer Trimmed to Shape and Glued to Wrong Side of Rosebud Fabric

I'm using the June Taylor purple fabric glue stick but Sewline is another brand I like.  And that little wooden stick is just a manicure orange stick that you can find in the beauty products aisle at the grocery or drug store.

Glue Stick, Appliquick Scissors and Manicure Stick Makes a Rosebud

After tracing, cutting and glueing the little piece of Patchback stabilizer to the back of my rough cut rosebuds, I trim away the excess background fabric to within about 1/8" or so right before I'm ready to turn the edges, and I did this one at a time also -- I didn't want to trim all 44 of them and then realize that I made the turning allowance too narrow!  Better to do one at a time so I can make an adjustment and cut the next one a little wider if I need to.  The wrong side of the seam allowance gets swiped with the glue stick and then I use the manicure stick to turn the fabric back over the edge of the stabilizer shape as smoothly as possible .  If the seam allowance/turning allowance is too wide, it's difficult to do that without getting pleats that make pointy corners on the edges of my rosebud where it ought to be a smooth curve, but if I cut the turning allowance too narrow there's barely enough to wrap around the edge of the stabilizer, it's difficult to get it to stick down properly, and there's a greater risk of eventual fraying of the finished appliqué if my turned edge is too skimpy and not well enough secured with appliqué stitches.  Here's what they look like from the back side once they are prepped and ready to be positioned on my block for stitching:

Four Little Rosebuds, Prepped and Ready to Sew

I prepped eight little rosebuds so I still need to do forty more of them, but at least all forty remaining rosebuds have their Patchback shapes cut out and glued to the wrong side so they should go a bit faster.

Eight Prepped Rosebuds!

How Many Rosebuds?!

I am so dorky-excited about my eight little rosebuds, like I'm the Count on Sesame Street and 8 is the Number of the Day!

Seven Sisters Color Planning

In other news, the Australia Post tracking number indicates that my Seven Sisters pattern and acrylic templates are already en route to me from Michelle Yeo Designs.  I've been playing around with some ideas for this project in a coloring app on my iPad and this is what I'm leaning towards at the moment:

My RSC Seven Sisters Coloring Plan

I like the way that Martha made each of her Seven Sisters blocks from assorted scraps of the same color, but I also like the way that some of the antique Seven Sisters quilts I came across used a contrasting color for the trapezoid and diamond patches that frame each block to highlight the hexagonal block shape, and I like the way that color in the equilateral background triangles can create a secondary pattern of larger stars across the quilt.  So my idea at the moment is that each block will be comprised of scrappy stars within the same color family, with internal white or neutral fabrics separating them, but with a pastel fabric creating a subtle frame around the stars and different shades of yellows and oranges for my background triangles.  Of course everything is subject to change.

What Happened to Rebecca's Newsletter?

By the way, some of you who had previously subscribed to receive my blog posts as email newsletters have reached out to me wondering why you're not getting the emails anymore.  It's just gotten too expensive for me to keep paying for that service.

It Costs Me $100 per Month to Email Blog Posts!😞

I've tried several different email newsletter subscription services and although Mailchimp was the one everyone liked the best, that didn't end up getting blocked by spam filters or look garbled and wonky with duplicate photos etc., Mailchimp costs $100/month for the number of subscribers on my list.  Mailchimp (and similar providers) justify their pricing because of all the other services they provide, like segmenting mailing lists into different customer groups so you can tailor different messages to different groups, the ability to integrate with online shopping cart programs and send those "did you forget something in your shopping cart" emails, and much more, but since I don't have a store and I'm not selling you anything, I don't need any of those services and I have no way to recoup (or justify!) the cost.  So I canceled my account and that's why no one is getting these posts in their email anymore.  For the time being you just have to actually visit my blog web site to see whether I've written anything new.  I've been trying to post once a week or so and to link up with the same linky parties I've always done in the past, so hopefully most of you will find me one way or another without the email.

If any of you out there know of a better solution for this, please let me know.  Does Wordpress offer a free or low-cost no-frills email subscription service with their blogging platform?  I've been on Blogger since 2009 and I am not looking forward to the task of trying to move all of this content to a new platform, but would consider it if it would solve my email subscription problem.  One of the best parts about blogging is the relationships that develop with other quilters and crafters from all over the world, all the great advice and encouragement we can offer one another without ever meeting in person.  We all lost a lot when that Feedburner widget disappeared!

Well that's enough from me for today.  Gotta find that balance between writing about my projects and actually working on my projects if anything is ever going to get finished!  I'm linking up with my favorite linky parties:

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs  

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt  

WEDNESDAY

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

THURSDAY

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

FRIDAY

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

 TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

 

Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts