Heart's Desire - Bias strips

Esther has launched both the Sing Me a Song block, and Love Entwined.    I decided to start with Love Entwined, since there are 3 needed...and I get bored doing the same thing over.

I used a different technique than what others are talking about on the Yahoo Group.  The way I learned to do bias strips is a bit different.  I made 1.25" bias strips for the wider circle (finishing at 3/8") and 1" bias for the narrow stems (finishing at 1/4").
Press in half with raw edges matching on one side, and right sides out.

  Since my original plan was to use back basting, I had drawn the design on the back side of the background fabric.  I basted the OUTSIDE line of the curve in black. (If you marked on the front side, just use your drawing line as a guide)   Then I stitched the bias strip an 1/8" from the raw edges on the inside curve.

I just eye-balled it so my stitching line is 1/2 way between the upper-curve-basting-line (which may be your drawn line)  and the folded edge of my bias strip.  Make sure this side of the bias isn't pulled tightly or you'll get a lot of puckering on the background fabric.

Flip the bias strip out and stitch down on the outside curve.  Since I'm using scraps, I had short pieces of bias.  I sewed the ends down and and trimmed them at a location that will be covered by another stem.

Since there's a mix of "over" and "under stems, I did my best to work from the background out.  This stem used the same process as the circle.

After the "outer" curve was stitched, I trimmed the right side of the stem to 1/2 distance it'll be under the dark circle stem.  I snipped a couple of the stitches on the inner curve, tucked the stem in and stitched the circle back in place.

I hope to finish the stems tonight and move on to leaves tomorrow.