Bee Happy Applique Apples + Plaids

I've been working on a fun little applique apple project this week. I teased it on Instagram, and I'm excited to get to share today!

Here is my cute little basket of apples. Feels very appropriate for fall, right? This pattern is from Lori Holt's latest creative brain child: her Bee Happy quilt.

This quilt is a free quilt pattern on her blog. Each week Lori demo's how to make each applique block using her Bee Happy Sew Simple Shapes plastic multi-use templates*. The great thing about Lori's templates is that they're cut and ready to go and you will use most of them multiple times within the quilt.

image from Bee in My Bonnet

Looking at Lori's quilt, I fell in love with her cute apple blocks. (These perfect blocks are Lori's work.)

I pulled some of my Gingham Girls prints and Lori's latest Bee Basics fabrics together to play (and I thought they got along together rather well). I also followed Lori's method for creating her applique shapes using Pellon interfacing. This is a great method if you like the look and the process of hand-applique, but needle turn applique scares you. (I feel like my needle turn applique skills still need some work...) This method is especially helpful for circles!

I guess it's the prep work that keeps me from doing applique more consistently, because once I get everything ready, I do really enjoy hand applique part. It's some great mindless stitching. For this project I even glue-basted the pieces in place so that I didn't have to mess with pins or worry about the pieces moving around. (Supplies in the photo: scissors from Warm Crochet, Aurifil applique thread, and thread conditioner.

For my little wall hanging I used Lori's basket template as well as the apple template to create a little bushel of apples. Lori walks through the steps of both basket and apple construction in this post. I just made a few more apples and had them come out of the top of the basket.

I used my handy-dandy Destiny II embroidery machine to quickly stitch up the APPLES letters. (Three cheers for that nice little timesaver!) I'm still learning and playing with the functions of an embroidery machine. My goal is to really learn how to use it to it's full capacity and do more cool stuff with it!

Once again, you can find out all about the Bee Happy Quilt Along on Lori's blog and see all of the past month's blocks there.

One more quick public service announcement while I'm thinking of it. This simple patchwork black and red quilt I made a couple of years ago for a friend has been one of my favorite finishes. I'm determined to make a similar one for our family before Christmas.

The reason I bring it up, is because now is the time of year to get good flannel plaids. Some of my favorite plaids in this quilt (including the fabric I ended up using for the backing) are from the Plaiditudes collection at Jo-Ann Fabrics which is only available in the fall.

I just stocked up on a few more this week. I love these fabrics, not only because they're gorgeous plaids, but because they're great quality fabrics too! The plaids are real wovens (not printed on flannel) and they're super thick and soft. (And they're a great price!) So get them now before they're gone. I'm sharing now because the past two years I didn't think to share until it was too late and they were mostly gone by December.

Also, plaid is still a super hot trend. Here's a load of ideas if you're looking for projects to make with plaids.

**FTC Disclosure: some of my posts contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through one of those links I may receive a small commission, so thank you for supporting Diary of a Quilter when you shop! All of the opinions are my own and I only suggest products that I actually use. ?