Applique hearts project

Hearts, hearts, hearts. This is the project where I learned to do back-basted appliqué. I had a pile of 5-inch squares from Country Stitches in Lansing, Michigan (purchased in the late 1990's, before 5 inch squares were popular) I matched compatible squares, drew the hearts on the back of the background square, and started stitching. It was my carry-along hand project "forever". It took me so long to do that I'm sure my bee members were (are) totally sick of seeing my hearts (my bee, Georgetown Circle, meets monthly). 

I still need to add borders and quilt it, probably with a combo of machine and hand quilting to get it finished in a timely manner.

Back-basted applique baskets

Here is my current carry-around project for monthly bee meetings. The basket pattern is from the book When the Cold Wind Blows by Barb Adams and Alma Allen. I'm only making 20 of them for a wall hanging, with nine-patches in-between.

Some people would choose to get these done sooner and work on them at home, but I need handwork prepped and ready to go so I can grab it between work and my evening bees.

This method of appliqué is called back-basted appliqué, a method taught by Jeana Kimball. My friend Debbie S showed me this method after she took Jeana's class. This is now my preferred method of appliqué because it made a lot of sense to me. Prior to this, I never did much appliqué, in spite of taking a number of classes that taught various methods. I was never satisfied with my work because the pieces never stayed put, but would travel as I stitched them down.

In case you never heard of the back-basting method, here is a straightforward tutorial from Gaye Boomers.

     

In progress (top photo), prepped and ready to go (second photo), and back view with stitches over drawn lines (last).