Stitching Away on Dream Weaver

I've been stitching away on the Jen Kingwell Designs Dream Weaver  quilt for my son and daughter in law, though my son always refers to it as "Ashley's quilt", so cute.  I showed my version of the pieced background a few posts back, and moved on to the applique.  Since I made a very enlarged version of the background, I also enlarged the templates for the applique on a copy machine and wanted to try out the pieces.  After tracing from the printed pattern onto template plastic, I cut construction paper to mockup the pieced center design in the original size and the enlarged one. 

That's a 12" ruler for size between them.  When we had a family dinner on Sunday, I showed the mockup to Ashley and Nick and she immediately agreed with the enlarged version. We played with the fabrics she picked out at Superbuzzy so many months ago, and made some choices for the appliques.  

 It was such fun to finally get to cut into all the yummy fat quarters from Superbuzzy. 

Although designer Michelle McKillop hand sewed all her applique pieces, I machine pieced mine.  I did need to made some adjustments to several seams a few inches from the center to make it lie flat.  Some spray starch helped too!  I got a start on the next ring since Ashley couldn't yet decide on what she wanted to use for the center.  Tracing and cutting pieces takes time but these are pretty small. 

She chose a variety of white on white prints leftover from the background, and the points will be in a dark turquoise solid, which she also chose for the outer bias ring and bias stems.  I think that will look great.  Happy to be working on the next step of this beauty.  

The Meadowland QAL at Then Came June starts next week, so I want to have all the Dream Weaver center applique done before then.  The first week of the QAL is just cutting, I believe, so I should have time to sew on Dream Weaver as well.