Blue Delicious Blocks 6-9

One of the challenges of the Red Delicious pattern is finding a feeling of continuity as you stitch away. You want each block to tell a story within itself, but to somehow compliment each other despite the different themes and moods of the blocks. And you definitely don’t want to fall into having them all coordinate too perfectly.

I like to think of this pattern as a visit to Gramma’s house. Walking in the yard, seeing flowers, having tea with gramma with her fine china, picking cherries, watching the birds.

Block 6 is the apple/pomegranate on a shelf block. I knew exactly what to use for the pomegranate centers as I had some left over charm blocks from a Klimt fabric group and these intense gold and blue little blocks made perfect blue pomegranate centers. The apple was tougher. I have eaten many green apples, but no blue ones! My first try at the apple was white with green and gold flecks, but it didn’t work and I had rip it out and reconsider. I found a nice Jason Yenter charm square in the green verging on teal and my problem was solved.

Next up on the Blue Delicious project – Block 7 – is a small block with birds eating cherries. While small, it can be challenging and when I this square for my red delicious, it had a number of errors (Shhh, don’t tell.)

This time around, I am doing a turned edge on the “ground” and on the bird bodies. The cherries, bird feet, beaks, and wings are raw edge. The cherry stems are stitched using my Bernina #6 hand stitch setting and a green/orange multi tone thread with a second stitching of metallic on top of it.

I wanted to pick up the blue dot grunge some where else in this project and after trying out two other “ground” pieces, I brought out the blue dot grunge. After gluing down the bird bodies, I added the feet and beaks and used a tiny blanket stitch in a gold multi tone thread (but not a metallic thread). Metallic thread was used for the bird bodies and blue for the ground and cherries. The wings were then added. Finally, I used very small abalone shell buttons in brown for their eyes.

Block 8 is the heart/cherry blossom block. This block features a “wall paper” look to the background. I started with a piece of background and stitched out deco stitches in alternating blue and gold metallic variegated (using the same stitch for the metallic as the cherry basket table cloth in block #1).

First appliqué element is the heart within a triangle (I love this little motif), followed by adding the leaves in the same JY fabric and stems in the same thread as the cherry block. The blooms are added last.

The sashing is then added to this block and the first swirl/wave section. Thoughts of waves brought me back to thoughts of fishes and I invited a couple fish for cameo appearances in this block.

Block 9 is the tea party! This reminds me so much of my paternal grandmother. She had some beautiful tea cup/saucer sets and I still have a couple of them. Some deep blue fabric with light blue metallic dots in stash make for great blue strawberries. I used some of the border print from an earlier block for the lid top, handle and base on the teapot and the embellishments and handle on the cup.

Variegated silver metallic thread around the strawberries brings them forward a bit. Dark gold metallic goes around the teapot, cup and bowl. The berries and stems are raw edge; the teapot is entirely turned edge and the cup is a combo of raw and turned edge.

One more block to go! And two more swirl/wave sections. This top will be finished soon.

Happy Quilting! Lennea