Tortoise or Hare?

Which one are you when it comes to your sewing and quilting projects?
Tortoise here.

Yesterday, I worked on the Climbing Lanterns project. It might seem like this has been in the works forever, but compared to the one other fused and machine appliqued wall hanging I've done, I am working at lightning speed. The other one took 18 months.

On Friday, I cut out the brown kraft paper stems my daughter had drawn for me last week and laid them over the background to check proportions. I had also made a sample of one of the red lanterns. It all seemed fine.

Then I traced the paper pieces onto fabric, which had been lined with Wonder-Under, and cut them out.

I repositioned the pieces onto the backing again, and tonight I will fuse them on. Ultimately, they will be machine appliqued in place.

Working on this reminded me of a project I finished in 2008 called "Three Water Lilies," from a pattern by Ann Fahl.

Check out her website and blog sometime. She does gorgeous work, and many of her designs are available as patterns. Her pattern says, "A Workshop in a Bag," and it is definitely a very well-written, step-by-step guide to making this kind of quilt.

By contrast is the current pattern I'm working from, which has only very basic instructions. But it was free, and what do you want for nothing?

So I found myself rereading Ann Fahl's instructions for the water lily quilt this morning, and I'm glad I did. I had forgotten her suggestion to use a tear-away stabilizer when doing the machine applique. Since I was going to the fabric store anyway for thread, I picked up a couple yards of stabilizer as well.

That is the status of the Climbing Lanterns project. Slow progress is being made, but progress nonetheless.