Fall has arrived in Southern Oregon.  We live in a part of the state where there are Aspen trees which combine with our forests to give us some pretty amazing colors for fall. 
Ken and I enjoy canoeing on Upper Klamath Lake in the summer but have not done the canoe trail in the fall, we are going to have to change that.  It looks amazing.

The air has gotten much cooler, we have even had our first snows of the year.  My winter bird friends are starting to return.  And soups are often the main course now.

Our apple tree in the backyard is loaded with apples, and most seem to be out of reach of the deer so we are looking forward to a good harvest. 
​ I am already thinking about what to do with them.

In the meantime I have enjoyed making this month's block: Apple Pie.

To get your copy of this pattern click HERE.
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This block goes together pretty quickly.  For those who might like a reminder on how to make and trim the Flying Geese to size I have a video tutorial I made for the We Can Build A Snowman quilt last year.  The units are the same size so if you struggle with losing points on your geese you might want to take a look.

My Awesome Pattern Tuners-that is the name I have given my pattern testers-came up with some darling versions of the block.this month.

And now for the recipe:

I have a recipe I love for Apple Pie from my favorite cookbook: Cooking from Quilt Country.  The recipes are good home cookin', but I really love the stories behind the recipes and the wonderful photographic journey through Amish country.  I found a lovely copy a couple of weeks ago at an estate sale for just 50 cents which I gifted to a girlfriend.

When I searched online for a recipe to share I came across this one from Once Upon a Chef.  Jenn Segal has written a wonderful tutorial-I may even try her suggestion to blind bake the crust, although I am much more likely to be lazy and skip that step, lol.  Oh, but I can just hear Mary Berry in my head commenting on my "soggy bottom." 
​ Just click on the photo to get the recipe.

I hope you enjoy this month's block.  Let me know in the comments.  After all of the work that goes into these patterns it is nice to hear from you and I always read and respond.

So until next time...

It's Show and Tell Day for the Row Along and I am delighted to be hosting Ursula Prandtstetter from Austria.  Ursula designed the Pied Piper block for our Row Along and it was so interesting to learn the connection this tale has to her hometown of Korneuburg.  You can read all about it in her post where she introduced her block: The Pied Piper of Korneuburg.

Take it away, Ursula...
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Now the time has come for the Show and Tell Day of Marian Pena’s RAL “Once Upon A Story”. Thank you, Marian, for your time and energy to run this RAL. Thanks to Northcott Fabrics for supporting all Designers. Thank you, Debra, for having me on your blog.
This is the first time for me to participate as a designer. It was a great experience working with all the talented designers.
When my kids saw all the different blocks for this RAL, they chose 8 different ones for me to sew a big quilt. It got quilte big with about 88.5” x 88.5”.  Now my husband has a big quilt while watching TV and my kids are happy to finally have a big quilt to build caves.
I used the following blocks for this quilt:
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• Aesop’s Fables Quilt Rows von Elizabeth Coughlin
• Baa Baa Black Sheep von From My Carolina Home
• The Owl and the Pussycat von Nancy A. Myers
• I Had A Little Nut Tree von Pamela Boatright
• Wizard of Oz von Renee Chester
•  Hey, Diddle, Diddle! von Sharon Anderson
• Hickory Dickory Dock von Becky Smith
• Flower Queen von Stephanie Bertics
• The Pied Piper of Korneuburg

 
And here it is

Thank you for sharing your quilt with us Ursula.
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As for me, I have turned my Little Bo Peep block into a baby quilt.  The pattern is currently being tested by my awesome "Pattern Tuners" and I hope to have it available in November.  I will be doing a Sew Along for this quilt beginning the last week in October.   Each week I will be posting tutorials and tips to show my progress as we make this quilt together.  Whether you are making the baby quilt or just the Little Bo Peep Row Along block you are welcome to join in the fun.  There are even some giveaways planned along the way.  We are going to take this slow, doing small bits each week so that we are not overwhelmed. The idea is to give you detailed step-by-step directions so that you will gain confidence in putting your quilt together.  Be sure and sign up for email updates so you do not miss a thing.  (Sign up is located on the sidebar near the top of the post.)
For those who have not downloaded their copy of Little Bo Peep it is still available for free for a limited time HERE. 
​Additional fabric requirements for the baby quilt version can be found HERE.

But wait, there is still more fun and inspiration awaiting you.  The following bloggers also have some show and tell to share with you.  Be sure and visit them all.
Just Let Me Quilt
Words & Stitches
Duck Creek Mountain Quilting
Elizabeth Coughlin Designs
Linda B Creative
Charlies Daughter at Bobbin In Quilts
Seams To Be Sew - Layout Tutorial

That's right, there are more opportunities to win some fantastic prizes.  This week you have the opportunity to enter for three different giveaways.

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To enter each giveaway click on the arrows as shown in the example below:

This is where you can enter the Giveaways: click below.

We have all had so much fun with this Row Along.  A huge shoutout goes to Marian for keeping us organized and being the brains and inspiration behind it all.  I would also like to thank Northcott Fabrics again for their generosity in providing fabric for all of us to use in our designs.
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Happy Quilting!

I am so excited to to welcome you all here for my day as part of Marian Pena of Seams to Be Sew 2019 Row Along.  This is my first year to participate and it has been a lot of fun planning and preparing my part of the quilt.  Be sure and enter the giveways at the end of this blog post.

First a little bit about me:
I made my first quilt in the 1980's and have been at it ever since.  My quliting business is just over a year old and I now spend my days designing quilts for quilt alongs that I host here and via Facebook.  I love the chance to meet quilters from all over the world in my online world.  My passion is to pass on my knowledge of quilting with quilters of all levels, but I really try to gear things for those who may want to try it for the very first time.  Maybe it is because I have the heart of a teacher and my favorite years of teaching were in a Preschool setting.

Now back to the reason we are here today:
​The theme this year is Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales.  As soon as Marian suggested the theme I knew what I wanted to do.  Little Bo Peep. I envisioned Bo Peep wandering the countryside looking for her sheep who are all hiding from our  wee shepherdess.

I thought I knew the nursery rhyme well, but there is much more to it than I recalled:

Little Bo-Peep
BY MOTHER GOOSE
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​Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,
And can't tell where to find them;
Leave them alone, and they'll come home,
Bringing their tails behind them.

Little Bo-Peep fell fast asleep,
And dreamt she heard them bleating;
But when she awoke, she found it a joke,
For they were still all fleeting.

Then up she took her little crook,
Determined for to find them;
She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed,
For they'd left their tails behind them.

It happened one day, as Bo-Peep did stray
Into a meadow hard by,
There she espied their tails, side by side,
All hung on a tree to dry.

She heaved a sigh and wiped her eye,
And over the hillocks she raced;
And tried what she could, as a shepherdess should,
That each tail be properly placed.

I have always love the look of applique blocks, especially needle turn, but have had a really hard time getting mine to come out as nicely as the photos I see on pinterest.  My fall back has been  fusible machine applique. I love it for it's simplicity and ease of getting a quilt finished quickly.  But I still have a desire to sit in a peaceful spot with hand applique.  That is what I did with this block.  I used a combination of techniques, Apliquick tools for the smaller bits, and a variation on needle turn where I finger press the seams on the larger pieces before adding it to my block.  
For the large pieces I turned my pattern upside down and traced around it onto the back of my fabric.  Then I cut them out, leaving a seam allowance where there is solid line and trimming to the dotted lines.  (The dotted line areas do not need to be turned as they will lay underneath other applique pieces.)  HINT: I place a very fine piece of sandpaper under the fabric when tracing as this keeps the fabric from slipping.
Once I have the piece cut out I use a tool with an angle such as the one shown here to go over the line that needs to be folded under.  I do this on the sandpaper as well.

As an added bonus, the sandpaper leaves a line that I can see on the front of the piece.

The tool I used to go over the drawn line adds a bit of a crease that I can now easily follow.  I finger press the fold into place and it makes it so easy to sew it into place now. 

 I just pin and sew without having to work out turning the fabric with my needle
​as I go since the fabric already wants to lay the way I want it to.

For my smaller pieces I have prepared them using the Apliquick method.  I picked up these tools a couple of years ago and after watching several videos have gotten comfortable with how to use them to get excellent results.  I like the results much better than trying to machine stitch around something so tiny as my smallest of the sheep.

For this method I start by transferring the applique patterns onto this lightweight fusible interfacing.  It runs through my inkjet printer so it saves me a lot of time.  The paper will eventually disolve in the wash leaving a soft finish to my row.  HINT: Set printer to a lighter print so that nothing shows through on lighter fabrics.
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Once printed I cut out all of the shapes using a sharp pair of scissors.  My favorites are Karen Kay Buckley's perfect scissors.  My arthritic hands love the large, soft handles on these and they are sharp to the very tip.

I place the cutout pieces with enough room between them to add a seam allowance.

I next prepare the pieces by making cuts on the curves and inner points.  These are the two Apliquick tools that have become my good friends.

Using a watersoluble glue pen I place a light amount of glue on a small section of the seam allowance.  This particular glue goes on blue and dries clear pretty quickly while giving me enough time to manipulate the seam the way I want.

The forked tool is used to hold the piece you are working with and turn it as you go.  The other tool is angled on one end and pointed on the other.  The angled end is perfect for folding over the fabric and smoothing the seam out.

Before moving on to the next section I do a quick check to make sure
​that the fold is nice and smooth.   This is looking good so I finish it off.

This piece is now ready to go onto my prepared background piece.  I have a light box which really helps to see the layout and get things placed as I want them.

One last HINT:  Make sure to check that the applique piece you are laying will be completely covered by the pieces that go on top.  I have lifted the piece I am working on to show clearly what I am looking at as I work.

I can see that this piece looks good in its place.  The unfinshed edge will be covered by the applique pieces that will go on top of it.

I ended up making two samples of this block.  One was done entirely from scraps in my stash.  The second was doing using some green fabrics from Northcott.  I was able to pick out some ligher color greens which helped when trying to see the patter outlines underneath. ( I have listed those fabrics in my pattern.

For your copy of Little Bo Peep just clickHERE. 
​The pattern will remain free until the end of October.

Currently I am running a free BOM on my blog:  Just Desserts.  You can find it and more free patterns HERE.

​And now for the promised giveaways because we all like to win fun stuff.

I am so excited about this one.  I use Electric Quilt (EQ) for designing a large number of my quilts. I upgraded to this version last year (EQ8) and love how easy it is to get around within it.  To learn more visit https://electricquilt.com/online-shop/category/electric-quilt-8-eq8/

To enter this Giveaway complete the items in the box below.

The second giveaway is for this LED lighting kit for your sewing machine.  I had not heard of this product before, but after watching the video I am sure thinking about it. More lighting would be fantastic.  Note that the winner will pay shipping cost. 

​For more information about rules and guidelines for all giveaways please visit Marian's post at: 
http://www.seamstobesew.com/?p=22811

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Complete the items in the box below to enter

There is more fun to be had.  Be sure and visit today's other featured designer's blogs today
for more rows and even more giveaways.
From My Carolina Home
Words & Stitches


And stop by Seams to Be Sew as well, Marian will have all of the latest for you.
 There is still time to get past rows, and there are yet more to come!

I would love to have you join me on Facebook.   You can share a photo of your completed row with me there.  I always enjoy seeing the quilts made from my patterns.
  https://www.facebook.com/tuningmyheartquilts/

​Happy Quilting!