Thank you! and a variety of updates

I only posted yesterday but have been so touched (and slightly overwhelmed) by all the lovely comments on my Auntie Green/wedding post. I prefer to reply individually but just this once I hope you don't mind a collective: Thanks so much to all my kind blogging friends. 

It is a well known fact that everyone loves a wedding ...but I guess a wedding combined with a quilt - got to be a winner?! It was such a wonderful event but not quite over yet. There are dozens of white tablecloths to be laundered - eek. To take a welcome break from that I thought I'd give you an update on other quilting. 

Variety is the spice of life. That is how I approach quilting, and I have seen that many of you are just the same! So .. I could not resist a new project. Can you guess what it is ?

Yes it is Audrey's Quilty 365 sewalong! I'm calling my version Indigo Circles. She has a link up today - so many variations are possible to reflect each stitcher's creativity, style and mood. Thanks for a wonderful idea Audrey - it has inspired me to grab pieces from my indigo and black stash and start some circles. I love fussy cutting, repro fabrics and applique. So each circle will be a fussy cut feature from dark or light fabric and the size of the circle dictated by the size of the feature. I am thinking the squares will be a mixture of 4 inch or 2 inch. So far I have 14 completed - two weeks down for me - and just having a play with setting possibilities, could be set on point like this ...

...or maybe square like this ...

..or maybe something quite different? Meanwhile I am storing them in a tin - an idea I borrowed from Wendy

Next update is my Harrison Rose quilt ( Dawn's pattern). I decided to stop at 9 blocks - each 17 inches. Here they are stitched together - and will be followed by a narrow HST border and then a wide quilted border - so am thinking this will be big enough for me. 

I have put off starting the HST border because I am not keen on piecing. I know that foundation paper piecing on the machine would be the quickest method for me but I never seem to be in the mood to sit at the machine. So I bit the bullet and started making it with EPP. Might seem a slower way to go ...but at least it will get done! By my calculations this should work with 2 inch triangle papers (home made from light card stock).

Another update - hand quilting my Civil War Bride. Some days it is just too hot to think about this one but there has been some relaxing progress on the outer border (am starting on the outer edges as this seems to work for me) - just meandering along outlining the applique for now. 

Lastly - more applique on my Wheat and Woods. I was up to the last border - thinking up a design idea that might suit. I wanted another wide wavy wheaty edge on the inside of the border...

I have long admired this antique Dutch quilt - pictured in the book "Promenade in a Dutch Garden" by Petra Prins and An Moonen. 

It was this quilt that inspired them to make the little red quilt pattern "When Stars Meet Hexagons" that is in the book , and I made my own little EPP version too. But just look at the outer border of the antique quilt!  It is all hand appliqued broderie perse (appliqued to perfection) and has long fascinated me. So - in a much more modest way - I wanted  to give it a try. I selected fabrics with light backgrounds close to my background fabric colour. That way I would not need to cut away around the motifs/flowers too closely - making it quite quick to applique.

When I got this far I thought ..."no, not sure this is working, looking too patchy...yuk" and nearly scrapped it. Then I went back to it next day thinking it "might be ok" if there was more of it... and  set about finishing one border. Am now thinking it is not too bad viewed from a distance! The individual patches might blend even more once it is eventually quilted over.

Can you visualise it as a border around this ? 

In concluding my updates you could add to those projects - Benjamin Biggs and Shenandoah Valley monthly blocks. Yep...plenty to be getting on with! 

But that suits a lot of us perfectly doesn't it? In fact we absolutely panic if there is not always some slow stitching on hand. So nice to know I am not alone in this :)