Listen Block

I'm so excited...I tried to get this up last night, but the batteries in the camera were shot so I had to let them charge overnight.

I've been planning a design for a peace quilt over the last few months, doodling here and there. It's based on concepts from a course I've taken called "Peace Building Conversations", which has turned into more of an ongoing journey than a course that you do and leave behind. I've met some great people, too.

This will not be a quick quilt - some of the blocks I'll need to practice first. Some blocks I need to buy a book for so that I can figure out how to do the piecing.

Last night, I was inspired to start the first one - this is the one that got me thinking about the whole concept of my peace quilt. It's the Chinese figure for listen. Another post, I will go through the various pieces of the figure...for now - it's started!

I'm trying reverse applique (my first time!). Last night I zipped up the pieces of material, and picked out the first piece of applique and satin stitched around it. If I couldn't finish it, I at least wanted to see if it was going to work!

The above picture is the backside. The white fabric is sewn with the good side to the underside of the blue fabric, and I pinned the paper to the top. In the pictures below, you can still see pieces of paper sticking to the top.

Once I sewed the design, I picked off the paper. I realized the blue thread I used for the piecing was too...blue...so I went over the stitching with a white quilt marker, and shaded in areas that need to be cut out.

This is the first cut out. So I trimmed out the material, really close to the stitching line, and then satin stitched, for an applique look, the blue material to the white, stitching over the straight stitch line and catching the raw side of the blue material.

Lot's of things to work out - the corners, the paper I used for the pattern (too thick), the fact that the blue thread I used to sew the material together was too dark - so I couldn't see where the stitching was, when it came time to start cutting out the material...so lots to learn. Stay posted.

NOTE: I've set up a list of people to get an email when I publish to my blog. If you do not want to be on this list, please let me know & I will remove you.