A Little Further

And Now?

I think I'll add some more netting to the background, maybe some white.

How's it going so far?

A New Project

Quilters often have many projects in a half finished stage - and I'm just one of the crowd! I'm starting a new project today. A couple of years ago we travelled to France to attend a wedding. While there we spent some time at the workshop of the bride's father, Roger. We would have loved to bring home a piece of his furniture but it would have been very costly, so we compromised. We would buy a suitable piece of furniture and Roger would have some doors painted with his trademark scenes. In exchange, we (I) would make them a quilt. They had seen the quilt I had made as a wedding present for Caroline and considered this a fair exchange.

Roger's Workshop:

The Dresser we bought for the doors:

The quilt I made for Caroline - and if you want to know why I made her such a strange quilt you can read a bit more about it here.

We heard from Caroline a couple of days ago with exciting news - her first baby is due any day now! And she also sent pictures of the paintings that are going to be on the doors her father is making for us. So I must get on with our part of the exchange. And here is the pattern I have printed for my quilt. It is one of the pictures that Roger uses for his furniture.

I use PhotoImpact for my artwork and it allows me to print out posters by choosing how large the poster should be (in this case 80cm x 110cm) and it prints the picture out on a number of normal size pages (16 in this case) for me to stick together to make a poster. This poster is then the pattern I work from, tracing the pieces onto tracing paper and then reversing them onto the back of vliesofix (wonder under) to make up the picture with fabric pieces. It will be raw edge applique, the same as Caroline's quilt. I might try to piece the frame though.

The Centre Block

Hi Anne! Hi Nava! I recognise Nava's name as being one of the participants in this Round Robin - are you another Anne?

Okay, Anne and Nava have asked how did I do the centre block. It is made up of four blocks with careful placement of the stripped pieces. Each block is made up of a centre square and four pieces made of strips sewn together. I made two of each stripped piece - actually I made one twice the length and cut it in half - and then laid everything out before sewing each of the four blocks together. I've taken these pictures from the design in EQ6 so that's why the fabrics don't match what I eventually used. They are just approximations of the colour I had in mind.

I'm sure you know how to put that block together but in case anyone wants to know here is a little tutorial: start with the centre square and one stripped piece. Sew a partial seam stopping half an inch from the edge of the centre square. Go around the block adding stripped pieces as you would a log cabin and end by finishing the first seam you started.

 

Anne has since emailed and told me that she is a beginner quilter and asked if I would tell her the sizes of the pieces I had used to make the block. Here is my reply to her:

The blocks are 8" finished. [As you are new to quilting I'll make this comment (someone told me once and its something that really helped me designing my own stuff): ALWAYS work in finished sizes. Work out finished block sizes, finished piece sizes, THEN add your half inch for seams (1/4 inch for each edge).]

ok, so the blocks are 8" finished. The centre squares are  1.5 x 1.5"  finished so the stripped blocks are 3.25 inch x 4.75 FINISHED = 3.75 x 5.25 before sewing together. I just sewed strips together in random widths to make a piece at least 11" x 4" then cut that back to 10.5 x 3.75 than cut that in half lengthwise. Make sure the first strip you sew in each one is the dark background strip.

If you want to make it easy on yourself, use 2 x 2" (2.5" before sewing) centre blocks and then the stripped blocks are 3 x 5 finished, 3.5 x 5.5 before sewing.  

A New Round Robin

You may have realised that I'm not getting much time in the sewing room. I decided I needed to give myself more incentive to ignore the office work and make time to sew. I didn't want to enter any major competitions oir challenges, although they have deadlines to meet which would make me do the work, you need to spend too much time to meet that deadline. Round Robins though, a series of deadlines, with smaller amounts of work each time, that would work.

And then my friend Helen asked at club for volunteers to participate in  a Round Robin Exchange with some quilters from the U.K. who visited her a few months ago so I put up my hand to be part of that exchange.

The rules for the center block are:

• Everyone makes the centre block. This is a is 16” square when finished.  Please then turn the block on point and add to this 16” block 4 corner triangles to make a finished block about 23” square. Please make sure there is a quarter inch seam allowance especially at the joints.

Mmm, no guidelines as to colour or style. A search through my scraps... I don't have many large pieces of fabric, its all fat quarters or smaller, so no large triangles, I'll have to piece them. Mmmm. I'll see what I can draw up on EQ6...

Well, I've done it Helen, ready for the next step!

What do you think? Challenging enough?