dogwood blossoms

I made a quilt top!! A whole freaking quilt top! I don't know when it will become a quilt, but that is neither here nor there. I have been really living it up with daddy home to help with these two little kiddos and taking full advantage of naptime. Older child "naps" (really just plays in her room)  and daddy and baby snuggle while mommy sews. It has been a winning situation all around. Unfortunately, daddy is back to work this week so I am expecting productivity to drop off quite a bit unless my littles magically synchronize their naps ha!

Anyway, back to the point. Quilt top!! This is the dogwood blossoms quilt top which is one of the practice projects for the penny sampler class at stitched in color. Our first section is all about the applique. We learned two different methods for finishing those edges and I tried both of them in this quilt, and it was great practice. I also did sketch stitching to attach all those petals for the first time and man, I love it. It is definitely my kind of thing, so forgiving and nice and bold. I actually love this quilt top more than I even thought I would. I used pretty much all the brown fabric I had and a lot of the pink, and made this sweet little baby girl blanket.

One applique method is using freezer paper and the other is sew and turn. And if I'm honest, I'm not all that great at either of them. I think they are easier for me than needle turn, but I think I am just kind of bad at applique. Maybe all this practice will make me not so bad, but I'm doubtful. I definitely have totally different problems with each method, but in the end, I think they all look pretty good and it's not so noticeable if you don't look too closely. 

The top finished at somewhere around 39" and I am thinking a nice plush minky backing (without batting) will be perfect. Once I go get some. I am a little scared of minky, but I am going to try it anyway.

So now I am working on the actual penny sampler blocks. I am almost caught up on the blocks from the last 2 weeks (spoiler alert: I absolutely love them!!) so I'll hopefully be back with those soon. Assuming my first week home alone with 2 kids doesn't kill me :)