Brenda's Bounty - a work in progress

WIP...sounds so much better than UFO don't you think?

Brenda's Bounty started in January - 7 1/2 " finished blocks

My favourite antique quilt in Linda Collins' Quiltmania book

I have to admit my method is a bit different from the template piecing method in the book - just adapted to my peculiar skills (ie the difficulty I always seem to have with accurate piecing!) and the methods I enjoy. 

A little bit of fussy cutting if the fabric inspired

and here are the pieces prepared to hand stitch the block above

My method involved making my own EPP papers - using thin card and shapes from the book templates. 

For the small triangles I stitch basted the fabric over the card and later popped out the card to reuse for the next block. 

For the the handle rectangles, I first needle turn appliqued the handle onto a background rectangle (using back basting preparation method). Then I used a glue stick and iron to glue baste the rectangle over card ready to EPP this piece. 

The two large triangles were also glue basted over card. I usually prefer to avoid glue, but with large shapes the fabric stays a lot more stable than when stitch basted - because it is held all around the shape edges and not just in the corners. Hope that makes some sense? 

So ...all these pieces become...another basket block

Once the block was all stitched together by the EPP method, I removed the papers and unpicked the basting just around the edge pieces, pressed flat and trimmed to 8" square.

 

The design wall was important to check for balance in value and colour

The baskets are done and now I'm moving on the edge blocks - just simple EPP of little triangles. 

Not much looking forward to putting it all together with the sashing pieces ...Y seams ahead!  I'll put the sewing machine to work for that bit...and try to keep the brain in gear! 

The garden is starting to show signs of Spring cheer so I brought some inside.