Remembering Cheri monthly sew along

The last two buttons have been sewn on and Remembering Cheri is ready to pin and quilt.   One block for each month of the year, plus a few odds and ends in Cheri Payne's distinctive primitive style.  The pattern was available through Quilts by Cheri Friendship Group on Facebook. 

The pattern is also supposed to have a lot of applique in the outer border, but I'm just not an applique quilter.  At least for now, I'm saying I'm done! 

I learned so much from Cheri, even though I have a different preferred quilting style.
1.  You don't have to follow the pattern!  Make a quilt your own.  If you don't like a certain element, change it!
2.  You don't have to have things perfectly match.  Colors, fabric lines or points.
3.  Spontaneity brings joy and motion to a quilt.
4.  Work outside your comfort zone for a change.

I have difficulty quilting applique pieces like this with lots of buttons and trim things on it.  Perhaps just a meander that avoids all those things will work.  And what was I thinking when I didn't change the Whale?  There aren't whales in Minnesota!  I think I was just too busy (lazy) last August to change it to a sunfish, bass or walleye.  Do you think it will always bother me?

May Basket

Happy May Day!  I just adore May Baskets, and had to squeeze some time in today to make a basket block to share with you.

Cheri Payne  is a generous and wonderful quilt designer who has such a fresh and whimsical folk style.  She is in the midst of sharing a series of Basket Blocks with her Quilts by Cheri Friendship Group on Facebook.  I put together Block 1 today. It's the first time I've used wool for applique.  The tiny berries were so small that I cheated and substituted some sweet little buttons.  And, I used a piece of lace instead of the scalloped band on the basket top. Oh, I am soooo lazy!

Truly, applique' is not my favorite thing to do, and I don't know why!  My Elna does a lovely job of machine applique and it really doesn't take that long.  Trace, fuse, cut, fuse, applique.  Done!

It wasn't easy today though. The quilt gremlins were at it.

First, I cut the background piece for the top.  Then I cut the basket.  Next I started to cut the background side pieces - out of the piece I had set aside for the top!    What was I thinking?  Good thing this is a forgiving style.  There was just enough fabric left to piece together something big enough to replace that top section - but it took  3 pieces!

Then, my favorite quilting iron went on the fritz half way through the project.  It's the second time it's gone out.  The first time, a few years ago, there was a short in the cord near the plug and it kept turning itself off.   DH trimmed the cord back, put a new plug on and I was back in business!   Today it wouldn't shut off when it reached the set temperature and I scorched the ironing pad, gummed up the plate with spray starch and melted a piece of sweatshirt knit.  Yowzer!  Maybe time to retire it for good.  Should I yell "Mayday!"?