Priscilla's Workshop

 My latest project is quilted though it isn't a quilt. Some years ago I went to Big Lots in Salt Lake City where I picked up a decorative bowl for $3.00. It mimics the classic Tobacco Leaf pattern but clearly at that price it is frankly fake. Didn't and doesn't matter to me as long as it looks all right. We didn't use it on our dining room table until recently when my husband accidentally broke a crystal bowl that used to be in the middle of the table. The bowl just didn't go with the various items we used for protection of the table. The latest "runner" underneath the bowl was one of my late mother-in-law's obi, lovely thick silk but not in the right colors. Plus obi are such a strange size (14 feet by 11 inches) that I had to fold it several times to fit .

 

So I decided to make a runner whose colors would be more compatible. This pattern was about 30 years old, a small wall hanging designed by Pat Andreatta, that I modified in some ways to blend with my fake Tobacco Leaf bowl. I just finished it and unlike the quilts I make it didn't required soaking to remove the markings. The applique markings were in chalk  and those disappeared as I sewed. I didn't mark any quilt lines as the background fabric obscures the quilting anyway--navy blue on navy blue--so I just did a loose meander to hold the layers together after I added quilting to the applique bits.

 

As with most projects I learned a few things, especially appliqueing all those tight little curlicues. I have done curlicues before but these were much smaller in overall scale and also in the width of the bias strips. The first lesson I learned was to work on top of a firm surface that I could hold on my lap while sewing and rotate that rather than rotate my cloth. The second lesson was to weight the curlicues after they were sewn by putting them on my ironing board with that same flat firm surface and my iron (turned off of course). That final step made a huge difference in how the curlicues look, going from decent but a little scrunchy to lying completely flat on the surface.  If anyone is curious about the yellow birds, goldfinches are the state bird of Pennsylvania.