Every summer quilt shops across the U.S. and Canada participate in the Row by Row experience.  You visit a participating shop and pick up a pattern for a quilt row.  Each shop has their own unique pattern, but they all follow a theme.

I don’t really shop hop and gather rows each summer, instead I visit a local quilt shop from wherever I am vacationing with my family.  Some time in the future I will have a wonderful blanket filled with memories of everywhere we went.

Last summer we went to Gatlinburg, TN and visited the Great Smokey Mountains.  I made a stop at Mountain Stitches by Susan  and purchased a kit to make her row of the grist mills and water wheels.

There was applique involved with this piece and I thought I would try it a few different ways.  Just to see how it would turn out.

First, the upper windows of the grist mills were reversed appliqued.  This meant I put the window fabric behind the grist mill, and cut the grist mill fabric to show the windows.  I needled turned the grist mill fabric.

 

The door was next.  For this applique I did the backbasted method.  You draw the outline of your applique on the back of the piece you are sewing it onto.  Then you lay the piece to be appliqued on top.  Following the drawing you baste the piece on using tiny stitches.  If you let it sit like this for a while, it makes a perforation of the fabric to make turning under easier.  I just pull out a few basting stitches and needle turn the fabric.

 

Finally the trees were machine appliqued.  I cut the design directly on the green fabric and used a straight stitch along the edges. The fabric may fray as time goes on, but I think that would be in keeping with the trees.

To make the trees pop and add dimension, I opened the seams behind them and stuffed the insides.

Finally, I added some embroidery to the bottom.  Just to remember where and when.

Here is the finished row;

I am excited to see what rows 2016 brings.