Friends Sampler Progress

My buddy Erin Russek and I are making progress on the sampler quilt we're designing together. So far, I've designed the piecing for the large center block, and now Erin has come up with the perfect applique design to complement it. Here's Erin's block so far:

She really is the Applique Queen, in my book!

Last night I added the appliqued basket handle to my pieced block, and this morning I positioned stems for stitching tonight:

I laid the block on a photocopied image of Erin's block to do this. When we get a pattern ready for the public we'll do a proper placement guide pattern, of course, because this was pretty hard to see through even my white background:

I taped the pattern sheet for the applique shapes to a window for tracing - that worked better:

I pretty quickly had all the shapes traced on the Mylar template plastic:

And then cut them out (with non-fabric scissors of course!):

I have a few rough places on the edges to smooth out, but an emery board will make short work of that. Then I'll be ready to start getting the appliques prepped. I use Erin's applique method for doing this, and you do all the hard work up front, turning under all the edges before glue-basting the shapes to the background. After that, it's all stitching fun! I'm looking forward to that stage!

Although Erin's method makes it possible for anyone to do beautiful work, I'm not quite the addict she is, so I'm thinking about ways to simplify her design for my quilt. The small circle shapes, for example, could be replaced with buttons. And I may reduce the total number of flowers. We'll see how it develops as I do my block.

So today I'm a happy appliquer! What are you working on?