First Day of Spring Break

Today is the first day of Spring Break! We're staying home this week, so it will be a great week to sleep in, hang out with my husband and kids, get a few jobs done around the house, and work on some quilts!

This weekend, my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and their two boys came to visit. Their older son is the same age as my youngest, and their other son is a year and a half younger. The three boys are inseparable when they're together, which is so much fun to see! We had a nice visit, but I didn't get much quilting done. Since their boys had spring break last week, they had to leave Sunday to get back home. So Sunday afternoon, I worked on my McKenna Ryan 12" X 12" mini-quilt from her "Out & About" series.

Since I had cut all the shapes out last week, I spent the afternoon peeling the backing paper from each little applique piece and placing it where it goes.

For this type of fusible applique project, I use The Applique Pressing Sheet, made of Teflon. I placed the pressing sheet over the diagram. You can just see the black lines showing through in the photo above. Then I place each little applique piece where it goes. Once things are where I want them to be, I press them while still on the pressing sheet. Then I can peel the fused piece off the pressing sheet and place it onto my base fabric.

Here's the whole block, all fused together. Now I just need to pin-baste then free-motion quilt. Since it's only 12" X 12", it's easy to maneuver while I'm quilting. It just takes awhile because you have to quilt around each of the little pieces. But I've made two other blocks in this series, and I like how they turn out, so I think it's worth the time.

I'm linking up to Judy's Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.

Happy stitching!