Stitch Along Sunday – September Week 3

Hey Everyone, welcome back to Stitch Along Sunday.

I am afraid that I am a bit behind on my stitch along piece for this month especially considering today is the last Sunday of the month.  I guess that is what happens when you go away for the weekend to play with fabric and have fun. Now I am playing catch up.

This weeks rules can be found on Ruth’s blog – September Week 3 Rules. We are to add some applique that mimics or replicates a shape in our feature fabric.

Lots of swirls and curves in this fabric

There are so many different shapes in my feature fabric – swirls, ovals, swoops and so on. I was going to use these cool rulers that were in my drawer to create the shapes.

Originally I was going to use these templates for my appliqué

But then I decided to go with ovals and throw in some circles to keep everything nice and simple. Sometimes simple is better. I used the wool I had originally picked for piecing in the first week of this challenge.

Ovals and circles fused to wool fabric

I am using the wool I bought from my friend who owns ByTowne Threads for the appliqué pieces. I am also using the wool Aurifil thread I bought from her in the summer and just haven’t had a chance to play with yet. I bought a variegated grey/black/purple which will be perfect for this project and it will really stand out as it is a 12 weight thread.

12 weight Lana wool thread

Now that the pieces have been put onto fusible web and cut out I can arrange them on my piece. They are to go down the side with the light coloured fabric opposite the feature fabric but I think I might have them go into the middle section a bit as well.

Placement of pieces

After fusing the pieces in place on the background fabric it is time to stitch them down. Aurifil recommends a 90/14 Topstitch needle but my friend said to use a 100 needle which I do have so I think I will start with it. The blanket stitch will be my stitch of choice for this project. In the bobbin I have put a grey 50 wt thread from Aurifil.

First though before stitching I need to add a stabilizer behind the appliqué pieces so that the thread has a little something more to hang onto and create a nice perfect stitch. Will I use a tear-away stabilizer or a leave-in stabilizer? I think I will go for the tear-away since the background is light and I don’t want the leave-in to show through at all.

Here they are all stitched in place. The image at the top of the page shows a close up of the stitching. The wool thread was awesome to work with. I did have to dial the tension down to a 1 to get the stitches to sit nicely on the appliqué pieces with no bobbin thread popping up to say hello. Oh, I can’t wait to get more colours of this thread. I also want to try some hand embellishing with it – I have a piece just waiting for some.

All pieces stitched in place with blanket stitch

See you later this week, maybe even tomorrow for the final episode of September Stitch Along.

Happy Quilting!