Triple Play

I am thrilled to be back at the Land's End project. I think Keith was getting a little worried with no new blocks since February. So far this week I have made, not one, but three blocks and this is a holiday weekend with rainy weather and lots of sewing time left.

Blocks are getting easier as I chose to do the hardest ones first. May I just say how smart I was do to this? Well, I just did.

Land's End calls these Pine Tree, Christmas Basket, Night and Noon respectively.

Judy Rehmel's book calls this the Temperance Tree. The bottom of the trunk is a slight variation from the traditional Pine Tree block. The templates for the "leaves" in this block were not the right size. It was an easy thing to adjust as they are 3" finished half-square triangle blocks.

This design most closely matches the Basket and Rose design in the Rehmel book. I am choosing to fuse the applique and then satin stitch the edges. I'll wait and do all the edging when I get the other three applique blocks done.

I use the fusing method that cuts out all the fusible from behind the center of each piece and just leaves a quarter-inch edge to hold it in place. Maybe I'll photograph that method next time and show you what I mean.

This i.d.'s as the Night and Moon block. The color placement here is different than that shown by Rehmel.

I struggled a bit with fabrics for this block, but Gwen assured me this looks good and I have to remember that I need warmer greens to tie everything together in the end.

A sense of accomplishment!

Halfway there. This thing is gonna be huge!