"A" is for Applique and "I" is for Invisible

I have forever loved applique.
I have been appliquing for years. I have taught classes in applique and even led applique clubs.
Over the last few weeks my hands have been giving me alot of grief, pain, stiffness and cramping from the  fibromyalgia. I couldn't hold the milliner's needle and make the tiny invisible applique stitches. I was trying so hard to ignore the fibro and hand applique the May blocks that you see in the Patchwork Journal quilt above...I got so frustrated, put the blocks aside and had a melt-down, thinking I would never applique again because of this DARN fibro, I was even thinking about giving away all my quilting stuff.
I was very, very sad.

A few days later, my creativity angel (remember her from past posts?)  whispered in my ear, "you can't give in, give up, give away, just because of the fibro...you love applique and love conquers all!"

So this is what I did....

Invisible machine applique!!
I got out my freezer paper, traced the shapes and cut them out, ironed the freezer paper shape to the wrong side of the fabric, folded over and glued the raw edges of the applique to the paper with a washable glue stick, pinned the applique onto the background fabric, machine stitched them with YLI smoke color invisible thread and a small zig zag stitch, cut the fabric away from the back of the applique, soaked the block in water, removed the wet freezer paper, let the block dry, pressed it, machine quilted it and bound it and oh my am I happy with the results! :)

I love applique :)

Yesterday and today, with lots of hand resting breaks, and those lovely elastic glove thingys, I was able to get another Pennies from Heaven block stitched, yes this time by hand!

TAKE THAT FIBRO!!!

Best wishes and stitches everyone,

Tammy