Easter was a nice and relaxing holiday at my house. With the kids being so far away, it was just DH and myself. It was raining here and we were housebound.

Being in the house....well, I could have cleaned, but nope....I sat and stitched. I finished the green on blue background! Here it is along with the pink one I finished some time ago.
I'll trim these down to size when I get all of them finished. I think the colors look good so far. The next one I'm going to work on with the blue background will be a rust batik with touches of pink and blue. However, I'm not starting on that right now....I started stitching on the last block with the dark gray background. I'm going to try to finish that little quilt before I do anymore on the blue.

When I snap this picture, I also took a picture of the back so you could see my stitches. I'm so proud of them. In the applique classes I took, we learned that your stitches should be fairly even and they should be straight like the stripes on the highway. I'm getting mine pretty consistent and straight. There's still room for improvement, but I'm much better than I use to be. Hope you can click to enlarge and see the stitches.

One thing I've heard many people talk about is the needle they use for applique. In the classes I took, we were encouraged to give straw needles a try. I hated them at first. They were so long and they bent so easily. But I kept trying and I soon grew to love them. At first I wanted to throw away a needle as soon as I bent it. I was told not to do that because the needle was bent to my hand. It was broken in...... like a pair of favorite shoes..... once it was bent to my hand. Now that seemed crazy to me at first because I was used to hand quilting, and I do throw those needles out when I bend them. I made myself applique with that bent straw needle and soon realized the teacher was right! When I applique is also the only time I do not use a thimble. Any other time I am doing hand sewing....I use a thimble.

Hope I can keep up the progress with stitching and have that next block ready to share before the end of the week!