Busy Weekend Update

Happy Fourth of July--I hope you get a chance to do some holiday celebrating!

I am planning to get a few things prepped so I can work on them when I have a few free moments. I'll be setting up some Stitch Society hexagons, of course, and also my Primitive Gatherings block of the week, Sunflower Gatherings. I can't believe we are up to block five already! I am loving the sunflowers and all the happy scrappy fabrics.

Blocks one through four are pretty much done, aside from the parts that overlap into the alternate blocks. I have been making the components for the alternate blocks, but I will wait until the end to make all of them at the same time. That way I can mix up the fabrics a bit more. 

Confession: I just couldn't face cutting out 52 of the tiny flowers for block three. They measure 3/8 of an inch and I cound not get them to look pretty. I did some online research and found a Martha Stewart hydrangea paper punch. With a little experimentation, I got some good results. The punch isn't meant for cutting wool, obviously, but with the fusible web and the paper left on the back to stabilize the wool and a lot of muscle, I am pretty happy with the way they turned out. I had to pick them out of the punch with a tweezers, and occasionally had to snip a few fibers, but it worked! Toward the end, I figured out it worked even better if I just did one of the tiny flowers at a time instead of both of them on the punch.  

I think they turned out very cute--well worth the price of the punch and so much better looking than the few I tried cutting on my own!

Have a fun and safe weekend!!