It's Block Time Again!

For 2012, I made a commitment to myself to work on more applique projects--because I really DO love applique best of all the quilt making techniques. I believe that what I like best about applique is the idea that a quilt can look like a "picture" and not just a "pattern," if you know what I mean.

And, as you probably know, I've gotten myself involved in several applique block of the month projects, right? Well, it's the beginning of a new month, and that means it's time to start thinking about this month's blocks.

Tuesday night, our little Autumn House group met to talk about block three and pick out the fabrics we'll need. Tonight, Wednesday, I spent the evening preparing my applique pieces (starch and freezer paper method) so that when I get together with my stitchery friends on Saturday for our monthly gathering, I can work on appliqueing the block.

I don't think I showed you, but at the Manteca quilt show, someone had made and was showing their Autumn House quilt--we were all SO excited to see it! Here's a photo I took--we'll be working on the house in the upper right corner this month.

Shabby Fabrics is posting their free block of the month patterns around the 7th of each month--guess what I found when I checked their site just a few minutes ago?

Isn't the March block darling? I can hardly wait to pick out the Lakehouse fabrics for this one! I don't think I have any of the greens from the line I'm using, though, so I'll have to either order a couple fat quarters or see what else I have in my stash that will work.

I feel like I'm getting a little bit of a late start on the month, though, since I spent the first week of March quilting Rabbit Transit. Thank you all for the compliments! A couple of you have asked questions about the quilt, including questions about the scalloped border. The border I used is from the original pattern--it's such a cute design element that Anne Sutton came up with! I think half the reason I loved the quilt in the first place was that scalloped border. And yes, the scallop is appliqued to the background fabric--each of the four borders are appliqued separately before being added to the center of the quilt, as are the corner blocks.

As I've been writing this post and thinking about the fact that March is here, I remembered that I still need to draw a project for the month from my Thimbleberries jar. I'll do that and tell you what this month's "challenge" for me is on tomorrow's post. See you then!