Feed Your Soul!

I'm doing something this year that I've wanted to do for a long time. Once a month I'm taking a class with Mimi Dietrich on Baltimore Applique ~ yes, THE Mimi Dietrich! This is a year long class and we are making one block a month. We are working out of the book, Baltimore Beauties and Beyond by Elly Sienkiewicz. Now if you know me, you know I love to make quilts, and working at the quilt shop I get to do that a lot. But many times we are sewing like crazy people trying to make a deadline and then moving on to the next one. So my favorite thing to do, the thing that really gets me to relax and feed my soul, is hand applique. It doesn't get any better on a winter evening than a hot cup of tea, my favorite chair and a hand applique block to work on. It makes me slow down ~ I have to, and I make the block come alive one stitch at a time. I'm very fortunate to live close to Mimi so that I can take this class. I've appliqued for a long time, but there are so many tips that I'm picking up from her, and I've always admired her work and books. I have Mimi's book, Easy Applique Samplers (now out of print) on the Quilting Book page of my ebay store, along with a great book by Darlene Christopherson called A Perfect Union of Patchwork and Applique (my first ever applique class was with Darlene making a block from this book). They are great books to start out with! The picture above is a cluster of some of the class blocks that were brought in yesterday (mine is on the bottom right).

Here is a close up of my block. It is block two and I will be adding little strawberries, tendrils and tiny dimensional white flowers later on.

This is block one that we did before Christmas, done in my rebel directional paisley. For the most part I'll be making my blocks in somewhat traditional Baltimore Applique colors.

I am also a member of the Baltimore Applique Society, and have added that link to my sidebar, check us out!

Enjoy the day, and do something today to feed your soul!
~ Dawn