Sew Many Blocks

There was plenty of time for sewing yesterday. It's the one good thing about rainy weather...huddling in my sewing room and staying warm and dry. Yesterday, I made lots of blocks. It was time to top-stitch the Garden Sunshine blocks and render my final verdict on the new fusible product, Soft Fuse. In yesterday's post, I wondered if it would allow more fraying from the fabric. It's hard to say whether this would have been any better with Heat 'n Bond, but I think it might have. It was probably as much to do with the fabric as it was the fusible, but there was a little fraying on the brown I used for the roof of the birdhouse.

It was easy enough to clean it up with my applique scissors, and I might decide to apply a little fray check there as well.

But I believe the applique is significantly softer than with Heat 'n Bond, and that's worth a lot. I'd make the switch in the future. For now, I'm just barely into a 75-yard roll of Heat 'n Bond, and so I'll want to use that up before starting with a different product. It's good enough to know I have an alternative. If there's a quilt I want to make that would be improved with the new product, I'll use it.

Here's the first block.

And here's the second.

Some folks are doing these blocks in hand embroidery. It was tempting, but I have enough embroidery projects to keep me busy until the day I die. I'll stick with applique (did you see that pun there?) for this project. Oh yes, and the birdhouse block has two yo-yo's in place of the buttons I have laid out there. I needed a different size yo-yo maker. That will come today, and I'll finish it off.

When that was finished, I went outside to fill the bird feeders. Maybe the blocks reminded me. While I was out, I noticed the heather is blooming. It's the one blooming thing in the garden this time of year.

After that, I had some lunch and then got to work on the Mulligan Stew quilt. Every time I work on this quilt, I tell you that the patterns can be found in this book.

You can read more about it at this old blog post. There are several projects in the book, and I'm making the Mulligan Stew quilt because it uses all the blocks. When it's finished, it will look something like this:

Each time I work on it, I do another five of the 60 blocks. Right now, I'm on blocks 50-55, and so I'm closing in on a finish for this...my oldest UFO. The first one...

Second...

Moving on to the third...

I liked the story associated with this one.

The pieces were cut for the fourth block when I decided to take a break.

And I was getting tired of sewing by that time, so I suppose you might say that as I'm writing this, I'm still on a break. I'll get the last two finished up today.

Also nearing a finish is the Let's RV cross stitch. All that's left is one word in the lower left and the wheel for the trailer.

This morning, I'm walking with Sue. Possibly when I get home I'll get some stitching done on this. Once I get started, I'll probably stitch it through to the bitter end.

It's going to be a wet morning for our walk. I'm looking forward to seeing my friend, but I'm not really looking forward to the crappy weather.