A flurry of fabric and invisible machine applique

Last week sped by in a flurry of fabric and threads! We were busy at The CountryYard getting ready for our annual 'New Year's' launch.
We had samples to finish, kits and bundles to package, and quilts to hang. We also had a big change around, and know we will spend the next few weeks trying to remember the new home of all our fabrics!!
Sadly I didn't get many decent photos of the new look shop as I thought of it too late and the lights are shining too strongly in the ones I did get. Here's what you see when you first walk in though —

New block of the month (Avalon), class sample (Country Sampler) on the wall.

Leeanne talks about some of our new quilts *here*. Some of them were real team efforts with all of us doing our bit on them!

Another little re-stocked and tempting corner.

I'm pleased this photo turned out ok as it shows the mini-spools I made
(at work) for a class.

I've really fallen in love with this mini-spool block. This one I made at home to test out my (EQ7) pattern. I have high hopes of making more :-)

Here's something else new. This is the block I've made for the start of our Tuesday Medallion Mystery. I followed the rules set for Part One....... of course I cant share them here as we have to sign up at the shop to get the instructions :-). Part Two will see us adding something to the block.

I made this block from one of Kim Diehl's books (I have plenty that I drool over regularly!). It's re-sized to fit the size we needed for the Medallion Mystery. Although I love doing needleturn applique I didn't do it here. Instead I experimented with 'machine needleturn'.

I have done this before but with freezer paper - which can be fiddly to remove at the end. This time I used the water soluble applique paper shown below.

I was able to use the printer to print out most of the shapes I needed. The rest
I just traced on.

One side is fusible, so I ironed that to my fabric then used a glue pen and my
fingers to turn the raw edge under.
There are tools to do this but I don't have them.

A dab of applique glue to position the pieces in place, then sew on with a fine
zigzag.

This photo is just for me - so that if I lose my scrap of paper I can remember what settings I used! I've played with the size of the zigzag so I can get it as small as possible but it does have to be big enough to catch the fabric on the applique and then off to the side on the background. I used to do the zigzag a lot smaller but it was quite slow and, as I say, it was easy to misplace the stitches.

You can see the stitches here - so it's not as invisible as needleturn but it is
a lot quicker! I use Wonderfil Invisifil thread but one of the Invisible threads
would be just as good. (The thread for the centre circle wasn't the best colour
match; I should have pulled out something different.)

This photo is from a post I wrote on this method 2 years ago. You can see where
I cut the fabric to get the freezer paper out. I much prefer using the soluble
applique paper. I haven't done much of this technique since
then so it was good to revisit it.

Update: After Julie's question in my first comment, I decided to have a bit of a play. I had heard that the paper doesn't physically dissolve, the fibres soften, maybe the in-built glue dissolves.

This is a scrap of the paper with a squirt or two of water on it.
I was interested to see what the printer ink did, it left the paper and dissolved into the water - a bit worrying when you think it is against the fabric!
{I mopped up the surplus ink with a tissue and when the piece dried what was left there just dried on the applique paper.
After a bit it seemed to disappear but I guess the next step would be to wet a printed-on scrap against fabric and see what happens.}

 In comparison the scrap with the ballpoint pen written on it didn't have any ink bleeding or mess.

Here is the scrap after sitting in water for 5 minutes. It is very soft, has kept its shape and feels quite nice - I would like this sitting in amongst my quilt. 

It doesn't disintegrate as such - say like washaway thread which you never see again after wetting!

Interesting, huh? I think I would experiment a little more before using it in the printer again - it did save a lot of tracing and I would like to think it would work without putting ink into my quilts! (And thinking about it, the instructions say it's ok to put through the printer so it would seem it cant cause too much harm).

I've more bits and pieces to report but will tackle them another day. I hope your week's got off to a great start and you're finding time for some Creative Me Time.... I'm off to do that now ♥
Happy stitching,