I've been keeping up with my daily circles for the Quilty 365 project. Today is my sister's birthday, so I pulled this scrap of fabric in honor of her alma mater.
I've already chosen tomorrow's fabric in honor of Martin Luther King Day here in the U.S. I'm using Karen K. Buckley's Perfect Circles technique for prepping my applique pieces, so I get the benefit of two different types of hand-stitching on each circle!
I took a class in back-basting from my LQS earlier this year. I liked the technique so much, I made one of the projects from our textbook, Back-Basting Applique, Step by Step: By Hand or Machine. I finished the applique last year, but just recently began hand-quilting the project. I did simple outline and cross-hatch quilting on the applique panels. For the border, I plan to just follow the geometric designs in the fabric. Purple, green & gold are the traditional colors for Mardi Gras here in New Orleans, so I'm trying to finish this in time for that celebration - February 9th. I haven't done much hand quilting in the past few years, and it has been very soothing to get that stitching rhythm back in my fingers!
Since today will definitely be one of those hand-stitching days, I'm linking up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching. I'll be checking in there during my stitching breaks to see what hand-stitching everyone else is enjoying.
