Be Attitude Gift

I found this book quite a few months back and had it on my 'wishlist' at Amazon.  Finally I decided to splurge and buy it.
It's a pattern book of 12 blocks - all applique (meaning shapes cut out and layered onto a background, fused/stitched down) these also have some embellishment of buttons and embroidery on some of the designs.  The entire pattern is for a quilt but I chose a few to create a wall-hanging as a house-warming gift for a friend.
First I played with shapes and placement.

Once I had fused the shapes down I decided that I needed to make a practice block to try out some machine applique stitches and even played with a bit of embroidery (which I've not tried before).

After this little side-trip, I went back to my project and pulled it all together from my stash fabrics.  I quilted it - some pattern, some freehand.  I've never done a project like this before so I was really going with whatever seemed to work as I went along.

in process of quilting

back of part of a block

I've only done a very small amount of applique before now and this was so much fun that I've decided I'm going to make the entire quilt for myself at some point.  I think that there will most likely be more wall-hangings from this pattern as well.  The individual blocks lend themselves to that sort of thing very well and there is lots of room to personalize and even re-word (as I did on the owl block) to suit individuals.

All cotton fabrics, warm & natural batting, quilted by my on my Janome 1600P & New Joy Gold frame with various King Tut variegated threads from Superior Threads.