Merricks Nth, Month Two, Post One

 

Merricks Nth, Month Two, has two elements. The first one is complete! These are Sawtooth Stars that are shorter than they are wide, if you can imagine such a thing. I'm thinking of them as Squished Sawtooths.

I pieced them by machine. It took longer than I thought it would and I'm a little bit concerned about a couple of the points. I may have a bit of adjusting to do. We'll see.

The second element is applique. Orange peel applique, to be precise. Eight of them.

People have long admired my hand buttonhole stitch method of applique. And I'm proud of my work in that regard. I tried regular applique once, about 30 years ago. I still have the unfinished project. It is a cat.

So, knowing that Merricks would be bringing me a fair amount of applique in the monthly installments, and noticing that my LQS was offering a one-and-done class on applique, I signed up. I spent a rainy Saturday afternoon in their classroom where I was introduced to a couple of methods of applique and ended up thinking that the heat-resistant mylar template method was the way I was going to go. 

And here I am, putting it all to the test. The first of the eight is finished! And I'm pretty well pleased with it. Yeah, there are a couple of tiny places where the curve isn't quite as smooth as one might like. But I'm a beginner, and I suspect that by the time I get to the eighth blocks (not to mention what the other months may bring!), I'll feel confident.

I made a mylar tracing of the shape that was provided and traced them with my pencil on the back side of my fabrics. And I cut around them with about a 1/4" margin. On the background fabrics, with my pencil I drew a quarter inch line on each of the four sides. I penciled an X from corner to corner twice. And then I pinned and pinned and pinned. This first block took two evenings of stitching to complete.

My niece has kindly loaned me a great big bag of silk thread and, frankly, it has made a huge difference.

Only seven to go!