A tisket a tasket and some others

I have made my first applique with needle turn technique. It was very fun - I'm afraid I fell in love in applique ;) The tutorial in Carrie's blog helped me a lot - many thanks to Carrie! I decided join in 'A tisket a tasket' BOM and here is my first block. I haven't sewn the buttons yet. What do you say - have I done a decent job as a beginner?

I have also tried to learn hand quilting. I have made two quilt tops. I wanted to use quilting desings in them so I thought handquilting might be easier. Sometimes learning is painful: my fingers are now full of injuries. There are little wounds in my mind too - it's hard to accept that I can't make so even and tiny and beautiful stitches yet as I want (some day I can, I'm sure of that!). These works advance very slowly but stoutly.

This is the bigger top. It has thirty blocks. I'll outline all bear tracks and stitch plaits in sashings and borders. I have stitched only the first row. There are still lot of work to do.

This quilt is full of sweet memories. Pink fabrics call to my mind those times when my first DD and second DD were small girls. I sewed dresses from these pink fabrics for them. My second DD was two years old and she clipped a hole in her brand new dress in the first day by mishap. I was a little chagrined because the dress was only a few hours on her before this event. Well, I managed to patch the dress and she used it many times after that :)