WOOLY GOODNESS FOR "MAKE-IT-SNAPPY-MONDAY"

Over the weekend, my mother, sister, and I went to a quilt show, and I gave myself a budget (and a mission) to purchase assorted sizes and colors of wool.  This is the stash that I brought home, along with some ticking fabric that I plan to use for making a few Christmas ornaments.  

Although I started "Make-It-Snappy-Monday" for the purpose of sharing quick/simple stamped projects, I'm hijacking my own weekly feature to share a fun and relatively new hobby of mine.  Until I attended a quilt show this past March, my interest in anything that required a needle and thread had been minus zero but, at the show, I was absolutely drawn (sucked in, really) to all of the wool appliqué projects.  While there, I [impulsively] signed up for a block-of-the-month (48x70) quilt project, which was kind of scary because I knew nothing about wool appliqué, and it was a rather expensive investment for something that I might not enjoy.  I'm glad I took the leap, though, because I have thoroughly enjoyed the monthly blocks, and I have also enjoyed making some of my own changes to the block designs.  For example, last month's design was changed 100% when I took design elements from THIS pattern and THIS one to end up with this creation:

For the bird, I used the Elegant Bird Bigz die (retired, Stampin' Up!) and the Big Shot to cut the bird and wing from two different colors of wool, and the scissors feature a circular felt accent that is from a collection of retired Stampin' Up! embellishments.  One of my favorite things about wool appliqué, besides working with thicker thread and a larger needle, is that it's a very forgiving needle-and-thread craft.  So far, my practice has been with folk art themes, which have images that aren't supposed to be pristine and exact--I love that!  Each time I complete a block, I think that it's my favorite, and this one is no exception.  I'll be starting the August block soon that's supposed to be a row of pumpkins and . . . yes . . . I've totally changed the design, but it has two pumpkins--one on the back of a pickup truck and one that is rolling down the hill of a dirt road, having narrowly missed the dog that's chasing the truck.  ;-)  It's going to be a fun block!