Playing with Stitches

I had some time on my hands last week! It's a rare occurrence, and I quite enjoyed a whole week of being lazy, getting up late, staying at home and having hardly any commitments to fulfil. Yes, I finally succumbed to Covid-19!

I am quadruple vaxed and was prescribed anti-virals, so had only two days of slight discomfort, so a very mild dose, and I am so thankful to the Lord for His care. 14 people from our church came down with Covid in a week, so there are no prizes for guessing the probability of the source of infection!

It was a good time to do more work on the blocks for my new 2023 Block-of-the-month Quilt. I have been working on the project for a couple of months, have drawn all the designs, prepared the appliques and stitched all the wording (the part I least enjoy). Now I am up to the fun part. All the appliques are now blanket-stitched on the blocks and it's time to embellish!

When I am playing with appliques, I like to use a matching thread to blanket-stitch them and then use a contrasting thread around the backstitching to highlight the shape, like this from my More Precious than Jewels 2020 BOM:

I wanted something different to outline a butterfly I am working on, so tried out a new combination - the French Knot Backstitch! Every second backstitch has a French Knot on it. 

   

I quite like it. It looks like tiny little rosebuds along the edge!

In my 2022 Block of the Month, we are up to piecing the top half of the quilt, so are on the home run.

There's a number hexagon and the September mini-quilt to complete as well:

If you want to join at this late stage, you still can! - I will send you all the blocks up to this month. Details are here.

One of the BOM-ers showed me a lovely stitch combination she has invented and used in one of the mini-quilts. She has inspired me to play around more with stitch combinations, so you never know what might appear in next year's Block of the Month Quilt!

Happy stitching!

Val