I finished making all of my little foundation paper-pieced tree blocks. I was reminded as I did them how much I dislike that method because of the waste. Waste of fabric, waste of thread, waste of paper. While it’s true that you can get incredibly intricate designs that are pretty much impossible any other way, this method leaves much else to be desired, at least in my opinion.
So I began layout out my trees on the background pieces. I have them all pinned in place temporarily. I’m glad that even though it seemed like they would completely cover the base patchwork, that isn’t actually the case.
The way she has you create the frame and stitch them down is a little different. It’s kind of like stitch and flip, except you have to prepare the second flip to get finished edges.
In this photo, I’ve stitched down two sides and pressed them open, then pressed the raw edges again. I’ve pinned the other sides leaving approximately a quarter-inch on either side that I’ll also fold to have a finished edge as I’m stitching the pieces to the base.
After stitching down all of the sides, then I went back and topstitched the edges down as directed by the pattern instructions. After I get them all stitched down, I might go back and quilt around the trees, especially in these larger blocks, to give it a little more stability.
I just had to share the rainbow photos from the other evening too. My first glimpse of it was very faint. We had just had a lot of wind and clouds move through, but not much more than a few sprinkles in my neighborhood.
As I was sitting at the light, I happened to turn back and notice the other side of it, much more visible and vibrant.
Then I got a bit of a closeup. Just look at those gorgeous colors!
