DH found a small Mexican restaurant the other day and we thought we'd try it.  These aren't the national Americanized Mexican food chains, it's closer to authentic because she had menudo on the menu.

Menudo is cow stomach stew.  Before you start gagging, the tripe is actually good.  It wasn't rubbery or full of gristle, but very soft.  Rubbery is octopus and squid.  It was the stew part that was killing me as it smelled like cow manure.  The owner either felt extremely sorry for me as I couldn't get it finished or was proud of me for eating the tripe part that she gave it to me for free.  I did have to pay for the barbacoa tacos though.

My applique DVDs came yesterday and spent some time watching through most of both.

Both are worth every penny.  With all the applique projects going on, I really wanted to see how the masters do it.  As I was watching, I realized I have been doing both hand and machine applique right.  It's hard being self taught because you don't really know how something should look like.  I still get caught up in the "what if I'm doing it wrong and everyone is laughing behind my back?" syndrome.

I think I do that because while at a quilt store, a lady came in with a block that was truly awful.  The owner was nice and sweet while working with her and then when she left started laughing hysterically about how bad the block was and that it was the worst block she'd ever seen.  She kept going on about how stupid the lady was. I've been mistrustful since then even though I know I shouldn't.  I thought it was a great attempt at trying out piecing and felt like she had done a great job with what she knew how to do.

I also bought some of  YLI's Wash-A-Way Paper to see how it worked for applique.  It does appear to completely wash out when I ran some water over it.

I traced the pattern onto the paper, cut them out and glued them to the fabric.  I used a light layer of Roxanne's Basting glue which held really well.  Then I dotted the fabric with the glue and folded over.  The glue didn't seem to dissolve the paper so I kept going.

Here's the outcome:

Those itty bitty flowers are going to be the bane of this project.  I hate them already.  Trying to get a perfect curve has been driving me nuts.  Maybe that's one where I make a plastic template, run a stitch through the fabric and pull it.

Karen Kay Buckley showed how to use the invisible applique stitch by machine.  It was great to see it shown instead of a picture.  I'm still not sure I like the look, but it's nice to know that I have been doing it right the couple of times I've played with it.  It would work with the "Fiesta" Quilt as I don't want a raw edge and those pieces would be murder to satin stitch.