Bleeding Heart & Daisy, details

I've been thinking about designing a block with Bleeding Hearts for so long, I love them, I adore the way they hang and I think they're such a  romantic flower, I just knew they'd win a certain place in Forget Me Not.

Straight away I felt they belonged grouped with daisies, and then the colour scheme was instant; pink and green.

I know I always say this, but Preparation is everything!

This block is the fiddliest by far of all the blocks, but don't let that put you off...it's so satsifying to get these hearts finished, any pain along the way will be worth it! (and of course, there's always raw edge if you can't face the tiny details)

Elmer's glue, patience and a sharp pointed wooden cuticle stick (or use a thick needle to help you turn those impossible corners and edges)

clip and turn, doing your best to keep the edges tight and neat

you have to really be in the mood for applique when sitting down to turn edge the hearts

I like to complete them all in once sitting if possible,

but it takes a while so you may like to do it over several days

As I told myself throughout;

I'm only doing this once

and I'm going to look at and enjoy it for years! Persevere!

the end result is definitely worth it

This block is from Part 10

of my free 2012 Mystery BOM Forget Me Not

Yes, anyone can join in:

You can download this month's block via my website or my Yahoo Bom Group 

Banksia, details

As with every month, it always starts with the colours. I could have gone several ways with Banksia as there are quite a few varieties, and I opted for hot pink, using plain, batik and my own hand dye fabric.

The batik was a really great fabric to use as a background for the Banksia head; it appears that there are twice as many 'seeds' thanks to the background fabric, I love this effortless depth. If you don't have a background fabric that creates this, you can create it yourself by highlighting around your applique seeds with a pencil in a lighter tone to your seed fabric and highlighting around each seed individually. Then, heat set to make permanent.

lots of tiny seeds to cut

Preparation and patience are really important this month; both blocks have the potential to be really fiddly and time consuming. I opted for needle turn edges... and it really tested my patience!

but I love the sharp lines and wouldn't have it any other way

...progress...

the name scroll is coming, I'm still working on it!

This block is from Part 10

of my free 2012 Mystery BOM Forget Me Not

Yes, anyone can join in:

You can download this month's block via my website or my Yahoo Bom Group 

Bleeding Heart & Daisy, Banksia

Forget Me Not: Part 10 is launched

Bleeding Heart & Daisy

Banksia

I've wanted to design and applique some bleeding hearts for the longest time...and now I have! And it's the same with the Banksia, it's just one of those blocks I've always wanted to make. So I did!

 

These are blocks from Part 10

of my free 2012 Mystery BOM Forget Me Not

 

Yes, anyone can join in:

You can download this month's block via my website or my Yahoo Bom Group

WOW: the Fabric License Question

WOW = WIPs On Wednesdays

I cut into some set aside background fabric I shouldn’t have, and this means I had to buy some replacement Moda French General last week. Luckily it’s still in stock and this means I don’t have to change my background scheme for Forget Me Not again.

Whilst I was buying it quickly online, another fabric caught my eye and I couldn’t resist, I snapped it up. I love seeing new fabric and being instantly motivated to use it in one of my pieces.

I simply love it. Red, polka dot and tiny stitch details, perfect!

It arrived today and yes, it’s as lovely in real life as it is on screen and yes, I could definitely use it in one of my designs.

But then, something caught my eye on the selvedge: “License required for commercial use.”

On both sides of the selvedge there was printed advice: the name of the designer and her copyright on one side (which is pretty standard as far as I know) and on the other side the "License required for commercial use" advice, which I haven't seen before today, is this new?

I don't intend to use this fabric commerically, however 'commercial' can mean so many things and you can infringe license unintentionally - for instance, you may use the fabric in a quilt which you then photograph - if you then display the image of the quilt or use the image to promote your work, demonstrate a workshop or sell patterns, etc. then you're 'commercial'.

I have a lot of fabric in my stash and I have never seen this extra licence line before. I've known for a while that print fabrics and designer print ranges can be troublesome for professional quilters so I generally avoid them - I don't need the hassle.

I've been caught unawares buying this beautiful fabric, I didn't know about it's license before I purchased it, so now I definitely won't be using it. I wish fabric suppliers would stipulate exactly what their license terms mean and let us know that its a "“License required for commercial use” fabric before we purchase it!

If I'd known about this at the point of sale,

I wouldn't have purchased it!