New Project Started!

After a little bit of cleaning in the house and in the sewing room. I started a new project that I have been wanting to make for a while, The Split Orange Peel quilt.  When we were at the Virginia Quilt Show in February I watched a demonstration, by Sue Pelland on her rotary cut applique leaves. Really liked the rulers and could use them a lot in my quilts, so I picked up the rulers and the book.  The book has some nice patterns, so I'm trying The Split Orange Peel pattern.

The pattern uses 9 fat quarters and 1 1/2 yds of background fabric.  Today was a lot of cutting of fabric into 2 1/2" and 3" strips out of the fat quarters and then sewing the 3" strips into rows to make 8 strips in a unit.
 
Once you have all the rows sets sewn together you need to press all the seams open and add fusible.  I used what they recommend in the book, which is Mistyfuse.  You press it on the back of the press rows using a applique pressing sheet.  After you get the fusible on you need to let it cool for about 15 minutes before cutting.

After I let the rows cool, I started cutting one set of the rows into melon shapes, moving around the curves of the rules is a little bit tricky, but I'm taking it slow and easy with a 28 mm rotary cutter.

Tomorrow, planning to cut the rest of the melons out and layout the quilt top. So far this has been a fairly easy project.

Tina