At long last the very final block came out Tuesday!  Seems like forever that I’ve been doing this quilt, right?

Block number 12 in the Fall Into a Quilt-A-Long is an applique–easy peasy!

The designer for this cute owl block is Vanda Chittenden of Quilting with Vanda.

And here’s my version….

This was pretty simple after I finally decided which colors to use.  I’ve picked all three browns that I’ve used in the rest of the quilt plus lots of the orange and yellows.

Applique.  I love it, as you know! But, the more I learn, I realize the less I know!  Yes.  Lessons from life.

In the past several months, it’s been kind of making crazy that if the fabric is dark underneath the applique, it shows through the top layer.  Especially if it is a dark base.  For instance, you can see that the wings show though the body slightly.

Not too bad, I think I can use a nice satin stitch when I quilt this block and it will cover it up but…..

It’s more apparent in block one, the Hedge Hog.  The brown body shows through the face.  That really bugs me!

This time on the owl, the light colored eyes are on top of that happy orange fabric and the orange showed right through.  So I also cut the eye shape out of white fabric and used heat n’ bond lite–just around the edges of the tan fabric–and bonded it to the white fabric.  I also put heat n’ bond lite on the edges of the white fabric then bonded that to the head piece. Now the orange doesn’t show through.

This seemed to have worked on this block but I’ve done this with smaller pieces and they haven’t stayed. I guess too little to get a firm hold.  I tried using modge podge for fabric to glue those small bits down and that didn’t work either.  Still experimenting.  Anyone have any ideas?

Onto another subject….

Since moving my sewing room upstairs to the guest bedroom, I’ve been a little desperate for a design wall.  All of the walls in the sewing room are used–a Murphy bed, a sliding glass door, a closet, a wall-mounted TV–there just isn’t any room to hang my Work-In-Progress quilts.

A few years ago I made this bulletin board to hold pictures of the family in the grandkids’ bedroom.

I was trying to keep all my sewing stuff confined to the guest bedroom but finally gave up.  I’m moving my projects into that bedroom, too!

Here’s my new design wall.  Until I come up with something better!

(That’s also where I practice yoga and banjo!)

Anyhow…..

Here’s all 12 blocks.  Now I need to decide how to quilt each one and add frames and borders.

Another couple weeks and this quilt top will be DONE!

Love all the blocks and all the colors!