Progress on GO Real Fast Quilt

These are the final 4 blocks for this fast quilt that I started almost a year ago. Although I had researched lots of books and patterns, I ended up doing the traditional blocks in freestyle after having cut out lots of shapes with my GO dies.  I was looking for some inspiration and took the idea here from the Beyond the Cherry Trees Quilt but found a picture on a note card that gave me this layout.

Cherries

 Then I started stitching down each individual wretched little cherry and kept having problems with my machine. This is what I was finding on the underside. Now, I had the machine cleaned and serviced a month ago just as I was starting this machine appplique and I could not figure out what was going wrong.

Nests

So, I decided to check under the throat plate and discovered this big mess of lint. Ah hah. So, I cleaned it out using the special brush.

Lint

Then I found this red thread tangled up in the bobbin area. Sigh.

So, I got some tweezers and carefully removed it and proceeded on with my machine appliqueing. Until I had it happen again several times.

Thread caught in bobbin area

I finally decided that as I kept switching from 0 straight stitch to narrow zigzag every circle and it was messing up, the problem seemed to be not having a long enough top thread before taking the first stitch. It did not happen when I just moved the needle to the next spot without cutting the thread.

Using a press and cut mat to center the background square, I laid out the oak leaves in a circle. It needed something else in it but the acorn on the die was just too big for my liking. I actually found an oak leaf and cherry pattern in a book. I did notice one is missing.

Oak leaf and cherries

Flowers in an oval

Here I was making skinny stems to give the illusion of a circle. I cut out strips from the left over bits after running my custom made leaf di through the cutter. The bottom one turned out more round than the top. I am learning as I play. That is a wrinkle on the top stem.

Orange blossoms

Instead of changing thread colours all the time, I am stitching all the greens first then the reds.
Just have the creamy centers to do. And oh yes, most of those cherries.
Come to think of it, there are no cherries on the Dear Jane quilt.

Blessings,
Chris