Midnight at the Oasis Quilt Update

I've been reluctant to do a blog post until I made some decent progress with my latest project, "Midnight at the Oasis" by Jen Kingwell Designs.  It was quite slow going to get all of the applique border done and I did it in several stages over the last couple of weeks and really took my time as I wanted to do it right.  This has been my first real effort at doing applique by hand and I'm quite happy with the result.  I did not do needle turn applique, but instead I used freezer paper for each piece.  That meant quite a lot of tracing!  I ironed my freezer paper to the back side of the fabric and cut quarter inch beyond that and tacked it down with a glue stick.  Then I pinned with tiny applique pins and whip stitched the applique.  I also cut out a slit at the back when I was finished to pull the freezer paper out as I didn't want the bulk to be in the quilt.

I made the Churn Dash blocks at the same time as I was working on the applique.  They measure three inches finished size and took a while to get through as well.  I had a little help from my friends, Merran, Silvia and Danielle, which started out as Merran sending me a "naughty" Churn Dash block for working on this quilt when she says I need to finish my Steam Punk quilt first!  That one is so close to being done, but I'm waiting until closer to Christmas to finish it when I have some more time to spend at the quilting machine working on my own quilts instead of customer ones. 

In other news, my husband and I are just getting through the busy season--we each have spent so much time this year being sick with random colds, stomach bugs and flues that about the happiest moments we are experiencing are when our heads hit the pillow at night!  :)