Block 9 and a new trick for this old dog!!!

I've finished stitching the images on block nine...  Don't you just LOVE those posters... considering the importance of the bicycle to the suffrage movement, it was so appropriate to have a brand marketed to women entitled "Triumph"  Tonight I will finish the images on block four and should have block 5 done by the weekend...  Then they will be ready for  final touches on seams,beads, buttons and other embellishments...  I have been saving stuff for this specific quilt for ages and can hardly wait to start using it all

Then as often happens to me I discovered something I had been doing for years and years could be done in a better way... so I am sharing.... I have always basted down my desired images and then proceeded to embellish around them...sometimes with three layers of trim and then beading...  After about the third time sewing around the same images it is often not flat as I would like or with a slight. bulge or bump...

So this time I did NOT baste it down.  Instead I stitched the three layers of trims to the image  off the block and it is still flat and perfect ....  now I will stitch the whole assemblage to the block.... much better.

I should also mention that thanks to Allie I used lightweight fusible KNIT interfacing on the back of all images and what a difference it makes.. 

Addendum:  In case you miss the post on the bicycle and the suffrage movement:

For fascinating reading on this subject go to Women on Wheels: The Bicycle and the Women’s Movement of the 1890s.  And a book that I found invaluable is Wheels of Change: How women rode the bicycle to freedom by Sue Macy. This is a National Geographic book that I love and would be a perfect gift for a teen or preteen girl. If you have a daughter, granddaughter or niece of this age I highly recommend it and they will look at their bikes differently for the rest of their life.