Three Finished Bloomers Blocks

Hi and welcome 😊 I'm so happy that you made it! I've been playing and have many projects in progress. Here is one of my favourites! I appliquéd a third block from Bloomers' SAL It's been a lot of fun, especially since I was able to add some embroidery. 

Bloomers Blocks - so far

Three blocks from the Bloomers SAL

The blocks are part of the Sew Along created by Denise @Quiltery. The Bloomers quilt will be amazing! I'm not sure how large I'll make the quilt - we have lots of time, so we'll see. 

quiltery.com

Here's what I've made so far.

First block

I appliquéd the flowers, used the chain stitch to embroider the stems and the back stitch for the lines in the flowers.

My first block - appliqué and embroidered

Second block

This is my favourite block so far. Since the block has a butterfly, I decided to use the butterfly and flower shapes that were in my batik fabrics. It was all appliquéd. I only embroidered the stem. I reserve the right to add embroidery at any time 😀

My second block - using the fabric as pattern

Third block

I've skipped one of the pattern's blocks - I may come back to it. It depends on how large I'll end up making the quilt. I loved adding the French knots 

My third block - dark to light

I've used most of my interesting fabrics to make these first three blocks. I'm trying not to buy more batik...but I think that "resistance is futile"😄

What I learned

• I've enjoyed making the blocks. It helps that I'm using batik fabric which is the same on both sides of the fabric. That means that I haven't put the adhesive for the appliqué on the wrong side!
• I was so happy to make that second block using the pattern of the flowers and butterfly from the fabric. I do have a couple more fabrics that I could use, so I'll try to make more so that they'll fit in.
• I love that I can add embroidery to these blocks. It adds so much (besides, who wants to appliqué a stem!)

Related links

• Bloomers SAL and Hexies, July 28, 2025
• Bloomers Sew Along with Denise @Quiltery

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. You might want to check some out, after you've linked up! below Bloomers' Progress on Quiltery, Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put your foot down, 

Here they are again 😍

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 547 of Free Motion Mavericks! What an amazing week everyone has had! Thanks so much for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. 

Gail from Quilting Gail finished making Bloomers - the Sew Along quilt that Denise @Quiltery designed. Gail used the embroidery option to make hers - what a sweet quilt! You'll want to check out her post for details of the FMQ!

Bloomers - made, embroidered and FMQ by Gail
based on Denise's SAL

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts released her Westfield pattern - the quilt was originally published in Make Modern. What a lovely quilt!

Preeti's Westfield quilt

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts has been very busy. First we have a lovely aqua table topper. As you might imagine, it was rough to bind but looks great! Kat FMQ it using various designs. You'll want to enlarge the picture and check out her post!

 Aqua table topper made and FMQ by Kat

Kat also quilted three donation children's quilts - they are so fun. Here's one of them - you'll want to check out the others!

One of the three children's quilts quilted by Kat

Gwyned Trefethen is FMQ her very large quilt. Here is a glimpse at her FMQ process. You'll want to read her post to learn more!

Gwyned needs a lot of preparation to quilt this one!

Sandra Walker of mmm quilts finished this lovely USO (check out her post to figure this one out!) called Suburbia. Someone is going to be very happy this Christmas! 

What a great shot of the water...and the quilt!
Suburbia by Sandra

It's now your turn 😊

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Many Updates and Free Motion Mavericks

Hi and welcome 😊 I'm sorry about not letting you know that I would miss last week. I needed a break and now I'm back. I hope that you're having a good week.

Slow stitching updates

In Fleur Woods' Joyful Embroidery workshop, I have been stitching away. It's very slow! I love it but have I mentioned that it's very SLOW?

Coming along....very slowly

This is where I was November 7th. 

The beginning

I've also been working a bit on the needle punch piece. I really love how it's coming along.😍 It's expanded from my round 10" hoop to a square snap-on frame. I'm going to see if I can get a slightly larger one! 

Latest work on my punch needle piece

Since my last photo, I've added a couple of fabric manipulation areas in the blue and blue-green. I used a technique taught by Mirjam Gielen through Patreon. It's called "cuir froissé" or "creased leather". Here is a quick explanation.

Start by drawing a shape on your background - round or oval works well. You then cut out a piece of fabric much larger than your shape. Stitch the outside of the fabric piece along your drawn image so that the image is covered by the fabric. Yes, you'll have lots of extra fabric flopping around the middle. Next stitch that extra fabric down. I just stitched in down in random places with simple stitches until I liked what I had. Since I didn't do a great job of stitching down the outside of the shape of the first one, I added seed beads over those stitches. 

Close-up of the fabric manipulations

This is a really great way to add texture into a piece. Next I'll do some organic embroidery over the two pieces of orangish fabric in the top right corner.

Next the orangish fabrics will be stitched organically

Quilting Floral Fusion

I've begun quilting my Floral Fusion wall hanging. I used my walking foot to stitch-in-the-ditch. 

Since I hadn't stitched down the appliqué, that was the next task. I tried using one of the appliqué stitches on my machine but it was very difficult to see what I was doing. That's the drawback when trying to blend in your stitches. After doing one of the flowers, I gave that up and just used free motion quilting (FMQ) to slowly stitch very close to the edges of the appliqué. Again, since the thread blended in, I did a couple of passes to make sure that I got everything. Here is a close-up of the quilting that I've done with the light thread.

FMQ down the appliqué

Next, FMQ down the appliqué with dark thread

What I learned

• The Fleur Woods' Joyful Embroidery has been interesting. I've learned a lot, but it is very slow going. 
• I've done quite a few small projects in the last month or so - I wanted a few finishes for all of the time that I've spent stitching and quilting! 
• I don't think that Fleur will have any competition from me. I love the slow stitching but only as a supplement to other things. 😊 I thought that it might be a little too slow for me and I was right. I am going to keep at it though. Both of these pieces will be gorgeous when they are done....eventually! 
• I've enjoyed quilting Floral Fusion. Stitching-in-the-ditch with my walking foot worked well as I took it slowly to stay in the ditch.
• The experiment with the appliqué stitch on my sewing machine reminded me why I often work with contrasting thread - it's so I can SEE IT! 
• Tonight I'm going out to find a larger frame for my punch needle and a larger, brighter lamp. My eye is healing well but I need stronger light with the option of a magnifying glass. Hopefully that will help.
• I'll be going through my thread next to see what I can use to stitch the darker appliqués. I'll probably need a few different colours. I hope to have the quilt finished by next week - wish me luck!

Related links

• Scraps, Embroidery and Free Motion Mavericks, October 31, 2024
• More Joyful Embroidery and Free Motion Mavericks, October 23, 2024
• Joyful Embroidery with Fleur Woods and Free Motion Mavericks, October 10, 2024
• Fibre Arts Take Two
• Fleur Woods, website, Instagram
• Mirjam Gielen Textile Artist Instagram

Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Why not check some out after you've link up below? Monday Musings, Sew & Tell, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Tips & Tutorials on the 22nd, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2024, Oh Scrap!, Slow Sunday Stitching,

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 507 of Free Motion Mavericks! Thank you for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. 

Donnalee finished her Eggplant Cat - what a cuty! The next one is Pepper Puss - I hope that she gets it done in time for the fundraiser!

Donnalee's quilted Eggplant Cat 

Deb from A Scrappy Quilting has a production line of quilts - some ready to quilt, others quilted and needing bindings. Way to go Deb!

Deb's production line

Legacy quilt

After a false start, Gail from Quilting Gail finished her amazing vase of Dresden flowers. She used two of her Silly Moon rulers to quilt the flowers. Check out her post to see close-up pictures of the quilt and her ruler quilting.

Gail's vase of Dresden flowers

Did you get a chance to see my finished Newfoundland Houses Table topper? I got it finished just in time to give it to our friend at his retirement party. He's very happy with it.

The topper and the fence!

It's now your turn 😊

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Floral Fusion and hand-stitching on Free Motion Mavericks

Hi and welcome! The daylight is getting shorter, the nights are cooler and I'm a very happy stitcher. I've been spending lots of time in my backyard - a little bit of gardening but mostly enjoying the wildlife and stitching quietly. This is what I envisioned retirement to be. 😎 Let's see what I've been up to.

Floral Fusion

This is a sew along with Denise of The Quiltery. I try to participate in Denise's events whenever I can. Floral Fusion is perfect for me - appliqué, simple and scrappy. I've made the first set of blocks and am in the process of getting the second set done. 

Block 10, the first two

Four of the first block (10) that was released

Join in the fun - there are many blocks left to go!

Floral Fusion

There's not much to say about the process except that I dug into my "floral bin" of fat quarters and choose some older fabric that plays well together. I'm hoping to have enough but I may have to raid other bins. I have floral fabric in pretty much every bin but the "floral bin" contains mostly the fabrics that have multiple colours, so don't really fit in my bins by colour.

I have had to re-do a few of the fusible webbing since I sometimes forget to place it on the back of the fabric! When I get lucky, I notice before I've ironed it on!!!

Hand-stitching/Embroidery

I hesitate to call some of my hand-stitching embroidery because I kind of make it up as I go - so some of the stitches are not recognizable as specific stitches - and I'm totally OK with that! 

Stitching on paper

A few weeks ago I eco-printed on paper. Since the eco-printing is pretty good, but not as a composition, I've cut out some of the prints to stitch on. This is the first one.

Stitching on my eco-printed paper

 Almost Daily Stitching 2024

This started as a Daily Stitching project in January but it didn't take me long to realise that when it comes to my art, daily is not in my vocabulary. I do what I want, when I want and I am all over the place - that's me and I've stopped fighting it.

So, I did a post in January and then mentioned the project in my First Quarter Check-in. There hasn't been an update since my first post, so here are some of the blocks. I am now more than a quarter (25%) done. 

This is what the tablecloth looks like now

I took a few pictures on my swing.

The left side of the tablecloth

The right side of the tablecloth

The pictures below were taken as I was stitching outside this week. For inspiration I looked on the web and found Kitty Wilkin's (aka Night Quilter) #1yearofstitches from 2017. I absolutely love the work that she did and have used some of her stitches as inspiration. The top block is inspired by her while the block underneath are stitches that I've done with extra thread. I'm having difficulty threading a needle, so I try to use it all up before changing colours. This worked out really well.

Learning the Hungarian
Chain Stitch

Two completed blocks

Here is a close-up of some of my stitching.

Close-up of my Almost Daily Stitching 2024

What I learned

• I've really enjoyed making the first block of the Floral Fusion pattern. I do have to remember to iron the fusible web to the back of the fabric!
• When stitching on eco-printed paper, I mostly follow the lines, but I realised that I am free to stitch anything, anywhere. That is very liberating!
• You may notice that I'm all over the place when it comes to projects and techniques. What can I say....I get bored and distracted easily 😁 I have decided though that I want to keep working on and learning more about hand-stitching and embroidery. Before committing to an expensive course (that sounds amazing!) I want to spend time to see if my interest will last longer than a few days - so far so good.
• As I mentioned above, I don't try to do anything "daily" anymore. I do what I want, when I want and I am all over the place - that's me and I've stopped fighting it.
• I hope that you'll check out Kitty Wilkin's (aka Night Quilter) #1yearofstitches from 2017. Her work is colourful, all over the place and gorgeous! The links to her website and Instagram are below.
• For stitching on my tablecloth, I now use a hoop. It's not for the tension - it's to help me find where I am on the piece!

Related links

• Floral Fusion Sew Along with Denise at The Quiltery
• Eco Printing on paper and Free Motion Mavericks, August 15, 2024
• So much slow stitching going on, January 09, 2024
• First Quarter Check-in, April 15, 2024
• Hungarian Braided Chain Stitch Video – NeedlenThread.com
• Kitty Wilkin's (aka Night Quilter) #1yearofstitches from 2017
• Free Style Embroidery posts on the blog

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties including Denise's Floral Fusion linking party . You may want to check them out! Remember to link up below 😊. Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Beauties Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2024, Oh Scrap!, Slow Sunday Stitching,

I'm linking up this post to Tips and Tutorials on the 22nd

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 497 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a lovely productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. 

Gail of Quilting Gail is now an affiliate with Silly Moon Quilting rulers. She highlighted some of the quilts that she's done with the various Silly Moon rulers. What not check them out and see if you'd like to use Silly Moon Rulers too!

Row by Row quilted with the "Beanie" rulers to make
a Baptist Fan design without marking!

Vicki from Vicki's Crafts and Quilting made this really lovely Pumpkin Mini. She stippled the background and then did lovely dot-to-dot FMQ in the stars and pumpkin. I love what she FMQ in the leaves!

Vicki's Pumpkin Mini

Vicki FMQ some lovely flowing lines in the leaves

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts has her Diva quilt pattern available in her Etsy Store. This is a lovely, colourful quilt that was in the Make Modern magazine. She finished it using her signature squiggly stitch. 

Preeti's Diva quilt 

Melva from Melva Loves Scraps finished a customer's Baby's First Year quilt. It's so lovely - what a great memory quilt.

Baby's First Year Quilt by Melva

It's now your turn 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Spending Quality Time Slow Stitching

It's already February although outside it feels like spring is in the air. 🌞 Frankly I don't mind if spring comes a few times this year 😊! I've done quite a bit of slow stitching this week and it's been lovely. 

Lots of Hexies

This summer, the #100hexies100days2023 challenge started in August. I started off well but life really got in the way in the fall. Lets face it, 100 days is pretty long! On Instagram, I made it to week 11 with hexies of fruits since I didn't have enough berry fabric 😁 I did make 3 more hexie flowers with Christmas scraps but never did post them. That gets me to week 14 which is one week shy of the 15 for the challenge. I can live with that.

Berries and fruit for week 11

Christmas hexies for three more weeks

These hexie flowers haven't been added to the rest of my scrappy hexie blanket yet because I wanted to fix my very wonky side. This image shows it best. If the top row is relatively even, then the side row is really, really off. 

Side row of double hexie flowers are off!

I undid the last three double hexie flowers. It's not perfect but it's better than it was.

I won't be winning any prizes for accuracy but it's a little better!

This is how much extra hexies I had to add before stitching the double hexie flowers back. 

Trying to make the edge a little straighter

I worked on these hexies for a few days. Since I'm dog sitting Poppy this week, I'll keep working on adding these hexie flowers and making more double flowers.

Daily Meditation Stitching

Actually, this is no longer daily and not always meditative but it is stitching! You may remember the hand-woven tablecloth from Turkey that I'm stitching.  It is coming along, but instead of daily, it's more in spurts.

It's not daily but I did ensure that I stitched the 24th block for my daughter's 30th birthday!

Celebrating my daughter's 30th birthday!

Here are some of my favourites, in no particular order. Sometimes I was experimenting and other times just stitching and playing with the thread.

Playing with variegated thread

Experimenting with variations of the fly stitch

Trying out battlement stitches

Experimenting

Trying to make fly and chain stitches work together.
I haven't succeeded yet!

One Monthly Goal

I have two objectives this month - to quilt my girlfriend's quilt and to finish Falling Swirling Leaves 3. My February OMG is the Falling Swirling Leaves 3 quilt. I worked on it and appliquéd all of the leaves. It's now ready to quilt!

A great way to remember the size of the 
zig-zag stitch that I'm using for the appliqué

A couple of the leaves appliquéd

Exhibition - Chez Lucien Restaurant in Ottawa

Some members of the Out of the Box (OOTB) Fibre artists are exhibiting at the Chez Lucien Restaurant in the market. I have a wonderful lunch with my girlfriend, and we were surrounded by some very lovely art. 

Wall art at Chez Lucien

Do you recognize the birds in Home to Feed?

What I learned

• If it looks like I have trouble establishing a routine, especially when it comes to stitching, then looks are not deceiving. I've never been a routine person, so why would I expect to be one now?
• I don't need a plan to stitch or quilt every day because that is what I do - and when I don't, it's usually because I need a rest. I am learning to listen to my body.
• I do know that I have to bring more interesting thread from the studio to the living room where I do all of my slow stitching. That does help me stay motivated.
• I undid the double flowers on the hexie blanket and then proceeded to stitch them back pretty much the way that they had originally been. The problem is that they look like they are in a straight line. It's just compared to the other line that they are not straight. Besides, try to make a straight line with hexies! 😁 
• I had a wonderful lunch at Chez Lucien. It's so cool to see my art on the wall! The other members of the OOTB also had some great pieces.
• Poppy is not impressed with me - I've been writing this post instead of playing with her! Thank goodness that a few treats will set things right.
• Did you see the Project Quilting challenge this week? The theme is inside out. I really have to think this one through!

Related links

• Instagram and week 11 of #100hexies100days2023 challenge 
• An Exhibition and Hexie Love on Free Motion Mavericks, August 09, 2023
• So much slow stitching going on, January 09, 2024
• Project Quilting 15.1 - Bird House Challenge 1, January 14, 2024
• Progress on Swirling Leaves 3 for Free Motion Mavericks, November 01, 2023

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to the February One Monthly Goal (OMG) as well as many other parties. Why not check them out? Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap!, Slow Sunday Stitching,