Working on the Rally Quilt

I admit it, applique is not my favorite quilty thing to do. It's not too bad once I get started, but oh, the struggle I have getting myself to start! I have a chronic pain issue, and today my pain levels were completely out of control. I felt nauseated because of it, so between the pain and feeling sick, it wasn't a great day to stitch detail work. I had finished all the fusing yesterday, so all the prep work was done, if that hadn't been done, I don't think I would have attempted it today. With frequent breaks, this is what I got done.


The covered wagon is all stitched. The rear tire looks flat! I think some of the fusible came off when I took off the paper, and that section kept moving as I was stitching. I might add some more thread tomorrow to make it look round, or I may just leave it and tell everyone the wagon hit a rock ;-) I am really feeling the time restraints at this point on this quilt, and I just need it finished. Finished is better than perfect, finished is better than perfect, finished is better than perfect!

There are four scooters pulling the wagon. These are the two Lambrettas, which are vintage scooters. I think these came out pretty well.

Tomorrow I need to stitch the other two scooters which are modern. Once those are stitched, I can assemble the quilt. I plan on just using the quilting to connect the scooters to the wagon. I don't want to add visible ropes or anything.

I went to Hancock fabrics today, and picked up some Wonder Woman fabric. DD#3 and DDIL both love Wonder Woman, so when I noticed online that Hancock's had Wonder Woman fabric, I had to get some. I was pretty good while I was there, I picked up a few remnants, I figure remnants are always fair game, and I bought some border fabric for the rally quilt. I was going to use some stash fabric for the outer border, but the closer I get to assembling this quilt, the less I liked what I was going to use. I am much happier with what I picked up today. I also got two other fabrics, some duckie fabric to make Miss S a dress, she loves rubber ducks, and the video Elmo's ducks on Youtube, and she goes around quacking all the time, she's so cute. The other piece of fabric is going to be the background for one of my next quilts. I wanted a constant background for that one, and the stuff I had on hand was either too large scale or I didn't have enough of it.

So, in total I bought four pieces of cut yardage, all of which have imminent uses. The remnants were a luxury purchase of sorts, I do have plans for two of those already. I love it that Hancock Fabrics marks their remnants down to $2 a yard. It's hard to resist that if I really like the remnant. I got a solid red that there is almost 2 yards of fabric, and I think it will be enough to make Bonnie Hunter's Nine Patch Split. That pattern is here
http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/06/nine-patch-split.html

Tomorrow I'll be stitching all the detail on the last two scooters and hopefully assembling at least part of the top. Oh, while my machine is set up for applique, I put eyes on my penguins for a baby quilt, and tomorrow I will applique the one block that needed something added to it on my sampler quilt. My Bernina Aurora came with a foot I didn't have for my old Bernina 1080. It is an open toe embroidery foot #20. It makes doing all the detail stitching SO much easier. I can actually see what I am doing. My detail stitching is far from perfect, but as long as it's getting better, it's all good, right?