I traced all the elements of the centre straight onto the Wash-Away appliqué sheets. These are cut out now and put into separate plastic bags. Some of them are so tiny that I'm afraid of losing them.
My first real sewing is the round border for the medallion. This is pieced from alternating light and blue triangles. I traced the ring onto the sheets which I had joined together, numbering the triangles. I separated the sheets and cut the arcs of the circle with a rough ¼" border. The fabrics I chose are a pale blue and a dark blue and white flower print from the Oriental Blue fabric range from Makower. If you are sharp you will notice I have reversed the placement of the dark and light fabric. I would like to say this is a design element but truthfully I got them the wrong way round and there is no way I am doing the circle again!
I will finish the circle today and trim the fabrics to ¼" from the triangle points. I am undecided about the technique I will choose to turn the seam allowance under. Leah Day has a You Tube video where she makes a template from bonded sheets of freezer paper. The strengthened template is inserted behind the fabric and then the edges are turned with starch and pressing before the template is removed. The turned edges are then sprayed and pressed again. The alternative is to snip the inside circle, apply glue stick to the back of the Wash-Away sheet and turn the edge to stick down which is a technique used by Lynette Anderson. Advice has been offered on the Esther Aliu Yahoo group for both methods but I may go for the more time-consuming template method as it is said to give a smoother curve.
The weekend passed so quickly. My granddaughter Isobel turned 2 and came to stay with my daughter and the rest of the family. Aunties, Uncles and cousins arrived along with the other grandparents and we had an old fashioned birthday tea with cake and jelly and then a couple of party games. The adults all stayed for supper too so it was a very full day.
So by my next post I hope to have finished the ring, prepped the white fabric square and started on making a few of the elements for the centre.
