Sunday Stitchers #4 - Shop Ladies or Street Shops

My husband's sister (SIL) gifted me this pattern as she knew she would never get around to making it.   It arrived in July 2023.  I showed it to the Needle Girls group and "we" decided it would be a good group project...Well, 5 out of 6 of us did!!  I think we had some sort of time line to finish each shop during 2024- but I don't recall that we decided a finish date...we probably enabled ourselves with something new by the time the deadline arrived.....We are easily distracted.

At the November 2023 retreat we all attended, we visited Shelleys Curtains & Craft in Warwick, and I spied this fabric - available in several different colours.

I suggested it as a good fabric for the buildings - everyone agreed or didn't resist - so we bought 6 different ones to share between us.  We also bought a green at Glenrose Patchwork for the trees.

I haven't blogged about it much - but I know I finished the first block in February 2024, had done another 2 by April, another 2 by July and they were all finished by January 2025.
(It's convenient that I sent messages to my SIL to show her as I finished the blocks...LOL)

Since my motto for the year is "Finish It!", I thought it should go onto one of my Challenge lists and as both De and Helen have continued on the project - we all decided it should be on the Sunday Stitchers Challenge/Mojo list and we all made it #4.

That number was drawn in May - so due for completion by 21st June.  How lucky the month between the May & June meetings was 5 weeks and not 4!

My starting point after our May meeting was that the blocks had been made, four needed the awning trims added and they were not joined.   I had been able to get the lamp posts cut using a Scan n Cut machine, but still needed to trace and cut trees & foliage.
Once the blocks were joined, I added the lampposts, tree trunks...(the easy bits), then added the foliage ...not so easy . . .there is no pattern for how the designer laid out the pieces, so there was a bit of placing. moving, swearing, moving, taking pictures etc until I was happy enough with it.
Then all that had to be appliqued...I had used machine blanket stitch for most of it - occasionally using another decorative stitch on the little trees etc.   Machine blanket stitching over the awning trims was a little challenging due to the bulk.
Then there was the border and the quilting (not my strong suit at all.....)

But it was done - ready for Show & Tell on 21st June!!!! Phew.

De had hers finished:

and Helen got her top almost finished.

I thoroughly enjoyed making this - well the top...yes, it was fiddly, it was fun selecting the fabrics and the threads...mostly machine embroidery threads.
Early in the process, we discovered a fusible web that you can put through an ink jet printer, so that made tracing the shapes a whole lot easier - especially the flowers in the window sills and the tree foliage pieces, which had very wriggly outside lines...