Star Block--Before and After

The pattern for this block called for some fancy machine stitching to embellish the white areas. My machine does not have fancy stitching...so I had to improvise!

Before:
And After:

I used two simple embroidery stitches to give this block it's fanciful image!

I have never embroidered before; I skipped that badge in girls club. Good thing I have the internet. I am quite sure that you can learn anything if you search the internet! I found two simple embroidery stitches....the stem stitch and the french knot. I followed the pictures and voila! I did it!

Slow progress

I'm ready to assemble some of the maple leaf blocks. On Saturday I did the half square triangles and the stem pieces. The assembly does not take much work now. This is only one-fourth of the blocks I will need.
I laid out the Christmas Sampler! The green sashing is just perfect!

I cut the sashing at 2.5" but might just trim them down a bit more. I moved the blocks around a lot and finally came up with this layout, and I really like it. Next I will have to figure out what color to make the little squares where the sashing meet. Right now the floor color is showing. I am happy to be making some progress on this one!

Autumn Beauty Quilt

I spent some time drawing diagonal lines on cut squares tonite. The maple leaf block for my fall quilt uses half square triangles, and my preferred method of making them includes diagonal lines on the background blocks.
Here are enough squares to make 30 blocks. It does not take much time, especially if a Star Trek Voyager dvd is playing!

I decided the background fabric (on the right) was too white, so I am using the wrong side of the fabric (on the left) as the right side! It is a softer look with the fabrics I am using for the leaves.

I have four blocks assembled! I am looking forwards to making blocks with more colorful fall prints...greens, oranges, reds, etc.

These will finish at 7 inch blocks. I need to figure out what size I want this quilt to be, and then I will know how many blocks I need.