Elegant Garden, Block 20

Happy Easter, the Lord is Risen!

Warning! This is a  long  post, get a cup of coffee or tea to savor while you read.

Block 20 of Elegant Garden is completed. I did a deep sigh when I prepped this block, so many little pieces!

I am going to show you my applique progress with this block, I decided to do this on day two of applique. The light green leaves were appliqued the first evening. The second day of applique was a Sunday afternoon and I appliqued the darker green leaves. I started around 2ish and completed around 5:30ish. A nap did occur during the process. The smaller the pieces to be appliqued, the longer it takes.

The next evening the branches and one stem were appliqued.

It's interesting, I'll be appliqueing, then all at once I've had enough and need to stop. I can't force myself to take another stitch.

I know there is more of the branch/stem fabric but I couldn't put my hands on it when I needed it. I'm not sure how well the lighter green is going to blend in but it's there and I'm not changing it. 

All off the stems are now appliqued and the blue corner flowers are also.

I added one of the flower centers. This is the only yellow fabric that I have in the civil war tub. It's not a bright yellow but it works.  

Last evening I added the rest of the yellow circles. I had planned to make the small circles on the curved stems blue also but now I'm reconsidering. 

I'll wait to add those until the center is completed.

The honey brown fabric in the center looks nice. 

I had thought maybe the pink things were a design in the fabric of the flower on the pattern photo, they weren't. Those little pink fingers take a long time to applique!  They will probably take whole evening to do just for themselves.

Yes, they did take a whole evening to applique! They were very fiddly but they do look nice now that they are completed. I added the center circle which I fussy cut. 

There were extra circles to be appliqued on the center circle of the applique pattern. I decided since those pink fingers took so long and were very frustrating, a fussy cut circle was the perfect finish.

I had intended to use the dark blue fabric for the other small circles but now I think that is too dark. The local grandsons are here for several days so I won't be appliqueing in the evenings until they leave. I'll make the final decision after they return home.

As you can see, I decided to go with two fabrics, pink and red.

I thought making all the circles red might make it too dark. Block 20 is now a finish, block 21 is prepped and ready to applique!

Elegant Garden was designed by Edyta Sitar.

Some applique patterns tell you the order to applique. This pattern does not so you have to be alert and make sure you applique in the correct order or you will be removing applique stitching which can be challenging.

The design is marked with a Frixion pen which disappears when pressed with a HOT iron after the applique is finished.

My sewing machine time this week was spent adding the next 9 patch rows to Rhapsody in Blue.

At this point it measures 90.25". The next step was to add the gray border.

And a view from the other side because I think it's so pretty! I know you see some blocks in there that look red. That fabric is a light blue background but red seems to pop out for pictures.

The flimsy has been returned to Elaine for her to add more applique. The applique will be in two opposite corners which will leave room for some very pretty hand quilting. The gray border won't be quite this large, it will be trimmed off. A dark blue border will frame the quilt. I'm not sure how wide the blue border will be, as I've said before, we're creating this quilt as we go along. Tentatively the quilt should finish at 120".

Linking to Patchwork & Quilts, Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Handmade Monday, Sew & Tell, Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings, To Do Tuesday