The Twist🎵🎵

Hey Quilters!  What a fun few days I've had doing the twist while stitching this applique in place.

🎵Come on quilters...Let's do the Twist!🎵

And 🎵.Let's Twist again!🎵

For a little fun let's do the🎵 Peppermint Twist... Round and Round, up and down...one two three kick🎵

Yes, it was so  much fun while I was 🎵Twisting The Night Away!🎵

SHEW! What a fun workout!(sarcasm) but an ole gal like me can only do so much twisting.  My dance partner quilt top is getting quite the workout as well.  She's just a baby and too much excitement makes her a little frazzled. 

 After be-bopping around five or six stars it occurred to me there's an easier way to do the twist.  A real slap in the forehead moment.  I've known this for years.  Stitch together as much applique as you can before adding it to the quilt top. !!!SLAP!!!

Sure, I'll still need to stitch the blue flower in place but it's a little less of the fun twisting with the entire quilt top.

If I pull off the rest of the blue flowers and stars it will make it easier to stitch the red applique to the quilt top.  That's the new plan because  an old gal like me(55) can only do The Twist for so long and then she's ready for a lazy 🎵Tennessee Waltz🎵

By the way you can click on the song titles to listen/watch the music videos on YouTube. Enjoy!  If you're like me you might want to end with a good cool down waltz.

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Quilting By Candlelight

 Last week our power went out twice due to thunderstorms. The first outage happened during the daylight hours and there was no property damage we could go about business as usual as long as it didn't require electricity.

I chose to open the curtains in the studio and sort through the blue scrap bins for fabrics to use in my scrappy Bow-tie quilt.

100 different blue fabrics is needed.  (2) 2" and (2) 1.25" of each print.  Somewhere around 70 fabrics the power was restored.   

It didn't take long to find the last 30 prints.  There's a lot of fun memories in these bins of fabric.  The dark blue fabric with big bright multicolored dots is from a Halloween  clown costume I made for my daughter when she was in the 3rd or 4th grade.  She's now 36 yrs old with 4 children.  The fabric right behind it is from my moms stash.  If I had to guess the age of the fabric I would say it's from the 80's.  It's not 100% cotton but it'll work just fine in this quilt.

I would love to start cutting, pressing and assemble a few of these blocks but there's a lot to do this week so I don't know if I'll have time to spend in the studio.  So I found an empty basket to store them in until I get around to pressing and cutting.

Mr. Podunk took a last minute vacation and will be home ALL week.  We won't be traveling.  He will be working on the back porch.  We need to replace the temporary stairs, add railing and paint.  I've been waiting for this since we remodeled the back of the house 6 years ago. I can't wait to see it finished.   While he works on the porch I'll be doing some fall yardwork and of course being his lovely assistant when needed.

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Bumpkin Baskets ~ The Final Border

 After wasting many hours trying to make this border tickle me pink, I gave up and decided to call it good enough.  It makes me happy to throw in the towel.  You know what they say... Finished is better than perfect!

The picture above is a bit deceiving.  Let's take a closer look.  See the gazillion pins?  Two days of my life was wasted pinning on the border, unpinning the border, trying different applique and pinning again and again and again.

The only way for me to know if I like the border is to see each little piece in its place.  Thank goodness I stockpile quilting supplies because I had to dig into the pin stash.  Hundreds of pins were needed.  About 200 pins, maybe more.  I didn't count how many I already had in the magnetic pin holder. 

It took another day and a half to glue the applique into place using Elmer's washable glue in an old Roxanne's basting glue bottle.  I like the fine tip on the Roxanne's bottle.  It puts the perfect amount of glue on the applique every time. To dry the glue quickly I set the iron on the silk setting.  The lower temperature setting will dry the glue with scorching it or the fabric.

For the next few days I'll be stitching the applique to the quilt top using the invisible machine applique technique.  My go to thread for this technique is Superior Threads Monopoly for the top and bobbin.  I say it all the time...I love this thread for applique.  

 A tiny little blanket stitch is perfect for hiding the stitching.  Once the quilt is washed, the stitches will be...INVISIBLE!  

I'm linking up this post at the following blogs.  Hop over to each link and be inspired!

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/2024/09/design-wall-monday-september-2-2024.html

and

https://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com/2024/09/oh-scrap-red.html

and

https://melvalovesscraps.blogspot.com/2024/09/sew-tell-september-2-2024.html

and

https://songbirddesigns.blog/monday-musings-9-2-24/

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3 Applique Starch Pen Reviews

 The three brushes in todays' review from left to right.

                                           1.  Ohuhu Water Color Brush Pens  $6.99(amazon)                                                                                 2. Traditional Primitives Starch Brush  $12 plus shipping                                      3. Clover Fabric Folding Pen  $11.16(amazon)

Each pen was fill with diluted Sta-Flo Starch using a spray bottle.

Filling the Traditional Primitives pen was a little harder due to the smaller opening.  Traditional Primitive sells a bottle of starch with a special tip for filling the pen.  The price is $5.95 for 3.4 ounces of starch.  Since I'm cheap I chose not to purchase their starch.

The Clover Pen comes with a small bottle of fabric folding liquid. I've not tested the liquid because it's too pricey.  The tiny refill bottle is $ 8.95.

All three pens hold the same amount of starch.

Each pen has a gripping area that reads push.  

Give it a little squeeze to push the starch out to the tip of the pen. 

The Clover pen(left)has a hard porous tip.  It's hard to see the starch coming out of the tip and it doesn't glide across the fabric.

The Traditional Primitive(middle) has a paint brush tip made with what feels like a soft synthetic material.   It seemed to glide across the fabric nicely and it was easier to see the starch as it was squeezed into the tip.

The Ohuhu pen(right) has a paint brush that is slightly stiffer than the Traditional Primitives and doesn't glide across the fabric as well.  But it's better than the Clover tip.

All three pens were used to make a few circle appliques.

The Clover Fabric folding pen will be my go-to pen because I have arthritis in my thumb and it's easier to squeeze the starch to the tip.  The other two pens made my thumb joint hurt with every squeeze.  If the Traditional Primitives had been easier to squeeze it would have been my first choice.  I really liked the paint brush tip. I tried to put the Traditional Primitives tip on the Clover pent the threading was different.  EDIT....I also tested each pen for leaking. They were laid on the table with the caps on overnight.  None of them leaked and the caps were not stuck to the pens.

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