Marabella Quilt Peek

Well...I accepted a challenge to finish the Marabella quilt top this week for new little girlie girl Olivia. Got all the applique blocks done first as my philosophy is "eat your peas first, Eileen." I have decided applique is something I'd like to do more of, but it is time consuming. I knew the time thing going in so decided to get them out of the way. That went pretty well, but tried two different types of applique--lining with thin pellon and freezer paper. Neither worked really well for the leaves but freezer paper worked the best. Ended up doing fewer leaves!! And not sure I'd ever do anything pointy for applique again. I also hand sewed stems, leaves and vases, but used a pretty stitch on my machine to sew on the flowers. Didn't think my ancient fingers would like the hand sewing, but they did just fine.

Owlie blocks got done. Cut a bunch of strips for that then figured out the darling rose buds look so good if centered in the strips. I didn't pay attention to where the buds were when cutting--DUH!!!!!! Have been able to find enough strips to work--wow it's looking sooooooooo cute. Will be able to use those other sad strips in other things like string quilts, but geesh!!! Looked at the place I'd gotten the cute fabric (44th Street Fabrics) and there wasn't any more of it, so super stressed till able to figure it all out with the little bit of left over fabric.

I had to do some trimming on pieces of this to make them fit onto other pieces. Don't know why that happened as I was sure I'd cut everything so carefully. They've all worked out ok, but would like to figure it out as I love this pattern (Marabella by Wendy Sheppard in Quilter Magazine)and would like to do it again. Wendy has a blog called Ivory Spring--wonderful stuff. Aren't those corner pointy pieces just cute? Love those. She used lovely materials in mostly lavenders with some green and some red, but I changed them to use mostly pink fabrics that I'd bought when awaiting Olivia's birth but not knowing she was she!!

Have two corner pieces of the quilt put together and just finished the middle strip. I didn't really think when fussy cutting the darling owlie fabric that on point means they'll sort of be going several directions--oh, well. They're so adorable Can't wait to see sweet little granddaughter wrapped in it. (Just showing little snippets right now until it's ready and at Olivia's home)