another pretty - shamrock

I made me another pretty to hang on my wall.

Since it is March, why not something to do with St. Paddy's Day?  I looked at leprechauns, rainbows, pots of gold, shamrocks and all sorts of thing to appliqué.  As beautiful as some appliqué is, I don't have the patience nor do I like it when my hands go numb from gripping a small object such as a needle for long periods of time.  So I when I discovered a pieced shamrock over at Quilting Works.com I went for it.

This is what I came up with in EQ6:

Once again, EQ6 did not have this block in their Block Library, so I went to the Easy Draw section and drew the block.  I then imported the block into my lay-out.  The block is a 12-inch block set on point.  I played with the inside border to get just a section on the bottom.  The outside border is the binding.

Need to cut:
(12) 3.5-inch blocks for the patchwork of the leaves of the shamrock.
  (9) 2 3/8-inch blocks of background for the shaping of the shamrock leaves.
 (1) 6.5-inc block of background for the quadrant the stem is in.  This is where I variated from the pattern and instruction, and used a 10-inch piece of bias binding cut down to 1.5".  Pressed the sides under a 1/4" and machine appliquéd it across the diagonal of the 6.5" block.
 (1) 6 7/8-inch block cut on the diagonal for the 2 lower triangles around the shamrock of background material.
 (1) 9 7/8-inch block cut on the diagonal for the 2 upper triangles around the shamrock of back ground material.
 (2) 6.5 x 7.5inch blocks for either side of the flowerpot on background material.
 (1) 9.5 x 7.5-inch block for the flower pot.  The flowerpot was another variation from the pattern and instructions.

I had to square up the block after I added the four side triangles and before I added the flowerpot bottom.  I trimmed off about 3-inches of the stem part of the block.

I was having trouble pinning the trimmed flowerpot to the two pieces of background until I had an Aha! moment.

Take the piece you cut off the pot and lay it on the background to get the right angle for pinning.

Sew it down and press.

Repeat with the other side and trim the seam allowance to a 1/4-inch.  Attach to the bottom of your block.  I echo quilted the background and stitched in the ditch around all the colored parts of the quilt with an echoed flowerpot in the center of the pot fabric.

When I got ready to make binding, I decided I didn't want the original green binding but something different.  Why not a gold binding to represent the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?  I found a goldish-yellow print in the stash.  I think it was just what this pretty need.

The label is on

So now I need to get busy with a wedding gift for Hubby's nephew that is getting married this June.  I have a couple of ideas, so we will see where they lead me.

I hope everyone is having a good day!

Judy