My first thought when I saw Block 10 on Tuesday morning was, “What colors am I going to use for this one that will work with my Fall color theme?”

My second thought was, YAY! easy peasy! patchwork and appliqué!

After completing Block 8 which was paper piecing and Block 9 which was a postage stamp block I was happy to see easy peasy!  Don’t get me wrong, I loved both of those blocks.  But…..sometimes it’s nice to take a break!

Sandra Healy, is the designer of Block 10, Patchwork pickles.

When I started “interviewing” my fabrics, I realized that I have three different yellow tones and four different oranges so I was able to use those for the canned pears and carrots.  I’m only using one green so that went for the background and the carrot tops.  The pears got a wee bit of the brown.  The jars are the same tan color I’ve been using in most of the blocks.  And another orangey yellowey bit for the lids.

Do you remember that I’ve mentioned in the last two posts that I lost the original brown that I started with???  I really thought that it had accidentally slipped into the trash can that I keep at the edge of my cutting table.

Guess what!  It was in my container that I keep my appliqué stuff in. Dang.  I found it AFTER I already had made the background or I would have used the brown instead.

I gotta say that I think I have my fabrics pretty organized so was really surprised to find that fabric in with the “heat ‘n lite”!  I must have been having a bad day or been in a cleaning frenzy when I tossed that fabric in there!

Anyhow….

Here’s my block 10.

I used blanket stitching around all the appliques.  I think that’s my favorite stitch for applique.

Here’s a hint when appliqueing.  If your machine is skipping stitches, it could be dirty.  I discovered that some time ago.  My BabyLock usually does perfect blanket stitch but last year while I was working on a different quilt, the BabyLock was doing stuff.  The blanket stitch occasionally threw in a few lazy Zs. I changed needles and that didn’t help.  As a last resort, I cleaned the machine.  No problem after that!

I also like to use a walking foot when appliquing.  That worked great on my old Bernina’s walking foot but the BabyLock’s dual-feed foot (that’s BabyLock’s version of a walking foot) is “closed”.  I could never see where I was stitching.  I just bought a new foot that is open for the dual-feed foot.  What a difference!

Here’s a close up:

Very happy with my appliques!

You might note that the original block has a “label” applique.  I didn’t do the part because I think that I will use that for my quilt label! I always make a quilt label with my name, the name of the quilt, and the month and year I finished it so this would be perfect! Since I don’t know when I will actually finish the quilt, I’ll add the label and the embroidery when I’m doing the final quilting!

Okay.  Here’s the first 10!

Pretty! Pretty! Pretty!

Only two more blocks left then I can start planning the final layout!