CHARM ABOUT YOU

I fell for the Merrow Croft pattern at the Festival of Quilts in 2019, where I met Margaret Mew and was enchanted by her work. My wonderful friend Michelle very kindly (and sneakily) bought me the pattern and gifted it to me later, just when I really needed something to smile about. It's taken me some time to start working on it but my plan was to finish a couple of other things first - they're getting there! With everything that's going on though I decided I really needed something that was no pressure, that I would enjoy making and that was a bit of a challenge. For those reasons, I have chosen to work on the Merrow Croft pattern for The 100 Day Project and you can follow my progress at #100daysofmerrowcroft. Obviously there's a lot of hand sewing in this quilt so I don't expect to be anywhere close to a finish after 100 days, all progress is good though and I'm excited to spend a little time each day working on it. It's mostly hand piecing and hand appliqué, I have looked at how Margaret stitches and preps her work so that I can try and do things in the way she does, much of which I have never done before. Learning is my love, I get excited about new information and trying different techniques... more on that shortly. 

Now you want to secure your epp to the background fabric. There are several options; glue pen, fusible web, 505 temporary glue spray or pins. Each come with their own pluses and minuses. Fusible web isn't generally repositionable so you need to work fast and be accurate, it's also a little tougher to stitch through. 505 spray is a bit messy for a small project like this but if you're happy with it go for it, I would be mindful not to use too much as it can make your needle tacky. Pins are a simple option, though they can prick and get in the way. I find that my projects move around unless I use lots of pins so I tend not to. For me glue is the quickest and most effective way to keep the epp in place. I use a fabric glue pen, it's repositionable if I'm not happy but holds the epp in place.
Whichever method you chose, try not to get too close to the edge of the epp - you may want to lift the edges slightly, get the tip of your needle under or manipulate them as you stitch and you can't do that if it's stuck down!

You can see here that I've used glue in the centre and along the inner seams, enough to hold it in place (I used more than I needed so the glue would show up for the picture!).


For the second flower I did a running stitch, which is super easy and also looks like hand quilting! I recommend using perle cotton, Aurifil 28 or 12wt or similar to get that big stitch quilting look. Keep your stitches close to the edge of the epp so that the fabric doesn't catch or fold back easily, like a top stitch.

The final hand appliqué stitch I've used is a blanket stitch. Wonderfully traditional, it adds a gorgeous texture. Again I would suggest using a thicker thread to achieve that stand out handmade look. For this one I used hand dyed House of Embroidery perle thead #8 in 86 coral. It works beautifully with the Brownstones print from Leah Duncan's Gramercy collection.

I hope this has given you a little inspiration to have a go at hand appliqué! The first two flowers took less time to appliqué than it did to epp the hexies together, the blanket stitch takes a little longer but the result is so pretty!

I'm not averse to mixing up methods and different stitches in my quilts. I plan on doing some by hand and probably some by machine. Variety is the spice of quilts! If you would like to know how to machine appliqué your flowers head over to Bonjour Quilts to read her Kingfisher Stitch-Along post.