It's winter down my way and the weather has been weird and it's confused my magnolia tree. A lot of the buds have been destroyed by frost and look like they won't be developing any further. This poor tree has been hit by several false start seasons in a row over the last few years and I'm wondering when I'm going to get to see it in full bloom again.

Oh well, I guess I'll have to make my own 'Monday Flowers' vase installment and get my magnolia fix that way!

I've been photographing bits from my garden to add to my colour files which I always like to leaf through when in search of inspiration.
I have three quilt designs on my desk at the moment and I'm torn equally between each one. The hardest part of releasing each new quilt pattern is deciding which to 'bring to life' via the pattern sheet as I simply don't have enough lifetimes to do them all.

I'm so in love with Magnolias right now. My teacup magnolia tree is budding and promising a whole window full of blooms and I've got my fingers crossed for a bumper magnolia season so I can bring those gorgeous branches indoors for arranging. When I designed my weekly vase range, I just knew magnolias would feature for my 'Monday' vase. Because, after the real thing, there is something just as satisfying - and that's fabric painted magnolias on my wall. 

So here it is. An applique arrangement for any wall you think could use some floral colour. Will your magnolia's be soft and gentle like my own colour scheme? Or will your magnolia's be bold like my fuchsia ones below? Florals are so versatile, you can set the mood and match any interior theme that suits you. 
This is 'Monday Flowers' and it's a flower gallery style wall hanging. I’ve designed seven vase designs, one for each day of the week. Each is a stand alone wall hanging, designed to showcase my love of vase arrangements for the home.

Monday Flowers finished size is 23 x 33 inches which feels like a perfect 'painting' size on my walls. The pattern also includes a 50% reduced option for anyone wanting to make it smaller. It's perfect for beginners or anyone who wants to make a statement in applique.

Oh WOW, take a look at these beauties! I haven't even started my own On My Window, Flowers Bloom yet, but I am very fortunate that I get to enjoy watching everyone else makes theirs over in my BOM Group. It's a hive of activity over there, whenever I drop in there's someone doing something incredible. I just sit down with a cup of coffee and swoon.

I only just released Part 1 of On My Window, Flowers Bloom on August 15th, but already some eager quilter's were quick to get started. So I asked them if I could show off their blocks here on the blog, and they generously agreed. So here we go:

First to get her block up and going was Jenny Henry. She even posted her process over on her blog (click here to visit her blog now). No regular readers of this blog will be surprised to hear this as Jenny is super quick with all my projects and each one somehow ends up being prettier than the last! I don't know how she manages it. 
How gorgeous is her fussy cutting for the centre bloom with just a dash of green? And I love that sky cloud print behind the window too. And her frame fabric is tiny bricks! It's all just so perfect.
Now for another Vase 1 that is equally beautiful but oh so different - take a look at Nancy Randy Paris's block. WOW! How absolutely beautiful are these colours? My goodness I was all in a swoon when I saw these pics.

People always ask me how I get so much applique done and I always give the same answer - turn edge applique is a game of preparation. You must prep. If you don't like prepping, then applique is not for you. There simply isn't any way around this - although people have asked me if there is a secret more times than I care to count. The secret is prepping. So don't be daunted, just get stuck in. And once you do, you too can prep and conquer!

This envelope is my work for the morning, here I go!

In my last Secret Garden post on the 1st, I showed you what the Secret Garden Part 7 block looked like (above). Today, I'm going to show you how I make the leaves using a turn edge method. Now, I prefer turn edge, so this is the method I'm showing. But you need to know that using a raw edge is also perfectly fine. In fact, I had planned to raw edge this entire quilt but found myself turn edging without really thinking about it. This happens when you prep as much as I do. I have so many quilts on the go that I sometimes lose track of myself. And when I realized I had gone ahead and turn edged so much..I decided to stick with it.
My preferred glue is always Elmer's disappearing purple but when I work on these small pieces, I use a glue stick I purchased at a local quilt store because it's smaller and drier to work with. This particular stick has no branding, but it is very dry and tacky - this makes it perfect for working on such a small piece. I could have also used the Elmer's, but it's wetter and when I turn the fabric edges they can roll back out. I usually keep a 6 gram tube of Elmer's next to my applique tools with the lid off to have a 'tacky' and slightly dry stick on hand for the same reason.
As I work the turn, I 'pleat' any excess fabric by bunching it close together as evenly as possible as I turn the shape
There is no cheat way around this process; if you're going to turn edge, your points have to be secure and neatly tucked away.
Turn edge applique is all about the prep: I have so many projects on the go that I keep my prepped pieces in envelopes, then bundled together. Often, I will spend days cutting out pieces to ready them for this turning step. I can turn pieces like this on a lap table in front of the TV or radio in the evenings and I usually have a few quilts worth of pieces on my WIP shelves to do during winter. In fact, I often discover prepped pieces for quilts I'd even forgotten I'd started years ago!

If you haven't already heard, there's a new free BOM in town and it's here to keep you busy right up until Christmas, so raid that stash and create a gorgeous windowsill scene today. I'm making mine up in wonderfully cheerful Fassett's and can't wait to start showing off my vases.

If feels great to have another BOM out and I'm already excited because I know there'll be lots of eye candy all over the Group before too long. Phew! Another BOM out of my sketchbook and brought to life. It feels good to get it out into the world.

I have so many exciting piles and nests around the house, each one a 'project' or WIP in progress that I'm playing with and tinkering on. Today I'm deciding what to commit to before the end of the year, and what to pack away as projects for another day.

Next week, my new Free BOM begins, so be sure to keep an eye out - I'll post more about it on Friday. That will take us up to the end of the year and before then, I'll have another free surprise to share too. Today, it's all about pulling out my diary and getting organized.

I must admit, I feel like the year is now basically charging head first into Christmas and before I know it, a whole New Year will be knocking on my door before I'm ready. Time to get busy!

This lovely pigeon was in need of rescuing from my neighbor's roof - she was lost, sore and scared. There's something wrong with her wing and she spent two nights out in the howling wind and rain before I managed to coax her into my laundry where she showed herself to be super calm, gentle and sweet natured. I was sure someone was missing her so I called around all the local vets. They told me that if I brought her in, they would kill her because she was an introduced species. Well, I couldn't have her killed just when I'd rescued her, so I went onto a Lost Bird site in my local area.

Lucky for her, an animal rescuer with a pigeon aviary let her join his gang. Phew! That was a close call. Between vets wanting to kill her and people wanting to collect her so they could eat her, she's ended up in a kind of Pigeon Heaven.

And I have my laundry back, so it's time to get washing. I'm afraid that with all my creating lately, the laundry usually lapses and then I have to wash back to back for 2 days to bring it back under control, so I'm going in, wish me luck :)

Part 7 is all about these applique motif triangles. From this block I'm working on, I'll cut 4 x triangles and set them aside until it's time to assemble the top. It's a Mystery and some quilters are asking me where on earth do these fit in? What can I say? Surely this is half the pleasure of a Mystery?! You really have no idea what's next and in the case of Secret Garden, believe me - no one knows what's next. There's more to come, each even more intriguing than the last..until the final reveal. So just wait and see, it will be worth all the suspense..
Once again it's all about the prep. First I made my stems. I used a 6mm bias maker for this which saved me lots of time. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. I have a 6mm and 12mm maker but haven't been able to find one that makes 8mm or 10mm and now that I know how useful they are, I want every possible size. I don't think they exsit but live in hope that someone somewhere has bothered to make them. I've been looking online without luck, so if you have these inbetween sizes or know where I can get them, please let me know as I could really make use of them.

Anyway, I cut strips, feed them through the maker and then pin the edge to my ironing board (which is covered with this super busy print, sorry)
These are the fabrics I've opted for, as my background is light green, I decided to mix in some pink with these blocks. They will appear evenly around the quilt, so I want them to pick up the shades I've used in my main applique blocks. I've opted for harmonious, but contrast would work too - especially if contrast elements will show up elsewhere in your fabric selections.

I have 16 x triangles to make, from 4 x squares so I'm busy getting it done. Can't wait to see how you are making yours. If you're not already a member of my Free BOM Group over on Facebook, be sure to join - it's a busy hub of quilters sharing their work each day and I love dropping in and getting inspired.