Love Entwined

 Love Entwined, Part 5.  (Finally!)

...and no, I haven't forgotten Part 4.  I had started doing the flowers for Part 4 in broderie perse.  I eventually made the decision that I did not like my choices.  Took them off and now have to redo those parts.  But...here is Part 5 with quite a few little extras of embroidery added.

LE Update

Bad picture aside...here is an update on my Love Entwined progress. 

Lots of wrinkles, too...but still have a lot more work to do before I want to press it again.  The corners need doing, two more six-pointed flowers at the top and another heart motif. It's getting there, little by little.

Polka Dot Flowers

48 teeny circles..no, no, not again!!  There were 32 teeny circles in Part 1 of Love Entwined (Esther Aliu's freebie BOM).  I tried the first time around...I hated my circles.  I decided to make them out of felt and attach with a black bead for Part 1.  Phew!  Done...but no...Part 3 has 48 more of the little (buggers...oops!) circles. ;)  I knew I was not going to be a happy camper if I had to keep making all these tiny circles.

Thing is, if the circles were the same size as the flower centers in Part 2, I would be fine...grumbling, but fine.  For some reason, I cannot get the tiny ones to turn out nice and smooth.  I have tried washers, the tiniest of the Perfect Circles and hand basting them in place.  Still not happy.  :(

I finally found a solution.  And it is something Esther has done on previous quilts....stenciling those little ___, guys!  I tried it on one of the leaf shapes that had not been attached yet.  Perfect!

So how do you get 48 little circles in an hour?  Stencil them!  Yeah!!

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I still need to attach two more of the green leaves  for this one.  The next four polka-dotted flowers are ready to be appliqued!

Zig Zags and Lightbox

Yeah!  My birthday present came today!  I'm so excited and can't wait to try it out!  A brand new Artograph LightPad.  I wanted the 11" x 17" size.  I immediately unpacked it as soon as it was dropped off on my doorstep.  It is great!  It lies flat!  The lighting is all uniform across the surface!  

 There is only one down side to it...it is a bit expensive.  But...I have been using my current light box forever.  It never seems to give me the light where I need it most.  I am always squinting and lifting the pattern to see underneath. To me, this is well worth the money...well...not that I spent it.  A very nice birthday present indeed from my husband, Dave.  Thank you lots!

It has a nice protective sleeve to store it it, as well.  Doing the Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy Dance...(any body remember that....Ren and Stimpy?)

Here's one with a look at the last zig-zag border for my Love Entwined, Part 2.

Chateau Hexagons & Love Entwined

Two cute little birdies with a pretty pink flower pot for the second block of Chateau Hexagons by Lynette Anderson:

I have done a bit more on the next portion of Love Entwined by Esther Aliu, as well.  There are still the remaining diamond borders to attach.  You can also see the six-pointed flowers.  I intend to add a bit more color in the coming parts, more reds, greens and golds.

Triangles and Flowers

A little more love, Love Entwined, that is:

Finally have all those triangles, or cones, all attached.  The little flowers seemed to go much quicker than those.  Now onward to the star flowers!  Meanwhile, I am piecing the zig-zag border together.  I will applique that in place once they are complete.

Love Entwined - Little Flowers

And here they are!  They look pretty big here....but those guys are little!  I decided to make my stems with side-by-side stem stitches using 2 ply floss.  They stems were stitched before the circles and triangles were stitched own, so that the beginning and end go beneath the applique piece.

The tiny leaves were made using a "v" shape, rather than making tiny, individual leaves.  I then stitched the stem stitches over the leaves, making them look like two separate leaves.  And...I redid my little circles around the compass.  I still used the wool felt, but made them smaller, and attached them with a blanket stitch done with one-ply floss.

Thanks for taking time to visit!  I always enjoy reading every one's comments :)

Love Entwined....again!

OK...just too addicting already.  I don't know what happened!  I usually do not do this, but something called me to make a second Mariner's Compass for Love Entwined! 

A quick peek...the little circles are not sewn down yet, but you can see the overall choices I made.  I haven't posted a picture of this one on the group yet...waiting to finish making the rest of those tiny circles!

Very nautical, don't you think?

Love Entwined

Love Entwined is a new free BOM from Esther Aliu.  The first part has just been released, and has created quite a stir in the Yahoo group.  If you are interested in checking it out, click on the box on the right-hand side.

I made my fabric decisions for the first part, a compass.  Take a peek!

Of course, the circle will look more circular once it is actually stitched to the background fabric. However, the first part is to complete the compass, only.  

I decided to use wool felt (Surprise!  Surprise!) for the little circles. My circles are slightly larger than the pattern.  I used my Go!Baby! cutter to make them and this was the smallest circle die I had.  I am going to leave them 'loose', with only the bead holding it on...like a sequin.  I also decided to add one circle to the center.

Here is a close-up of one section: