
I must have made all these 9 patch blocks for a reason, right? Then I took a blogging/sewing break, spent hours with Eva at the pool, and went to Ireland and England to visit my son, and completely forgot what the heck the point of these blocks was. Do you ever do that? Well, I'm not as young as I used to be, and sometimes my memory isn't what it should be. Thank goodness for this blog however. I was able to go back through a couple months of posts and refresh that foggy memory.

I had purchased this book not too long ago, and there is such a pretty quilt in it, designed by Kim Diehl, called "Oak Patch". I didn't want a quilt as large as hers was, so I made some alterations. Basically I just made one 12 inch appliquéd block for the center and surrounded it with a lot of nine patches. Her quilt has four appliquéd blocks, some sashing and a border of nine patch blocks.
This book is full of great patterns, some designed by Kim and other designed by Jo Morton. If you enjoy their style of design, you cannot go wrong. The patterns have some simple appliqué, but by no means do all of them include it. I highly recommend the book, and think it is worth purchasing, and I don't buy many quilting books anymore.
I ended up not going to Lake Tahoe with my husband this weekend. Last week I had some place I had to go every day, which resulted in no sewing for me. I was desperate to just stay home and recharge in my sewing room on Saturday, so I begged off going on the day trip up to the mountains. I was intending to get back to my Triangle Gatherings blocks, but when I opened up my closet in the sewing room and saw all those lovely fall colored nine patch blocks, I thought I might make them my project for the day.
Once I figured out what I had meant to do with them, I began making the center appliqué block.

The block finishes at 12 inches, so those center black and cream nine patch blocks are super tiny. They are 1 1/2 inches finished! But you know what? I used my new Block Loc Strip Set ruler and those tiny little checkerboard strips came out straight as an arrow.
The block above is of my appliqué pieces all prepped and ready to sew. My machine appliqué technique is a combination of Kim Diehl's Invisible Machine Applique method, and Edyta Sitar's technique. I do raw edge appliqué, with an invisible thread and blind hem stitch. I use Heat and Bond double sided interfacing to hold my pieces in place before and during stitching.
One more tool that was super useful was this:

My Ott Light magnifying light was so great for being able to see where every stitch of the needle was going. If you have trouble seeing close work on your machine or when hand sewing, this magnifying light was invaluable. It has a flexible "neck" which you can bend around to just the right position to peer through while sewing.
Check back tomorrow and see my finished little quilt!