Vol 2 - Project 11 - Star Chain

Hi fellow quilty people and thank you to those who left comments on my last posting - it's all really encouraging.

This next project introduces internal frames - here's Harriet's quilt............

Only 2 fabrics in this quilt - but I couldn't resist adding a 3rd - so I've made this with good quality black quilters muslin and 2 green hand-dyes.

Here's mine laid out, unsewn without borders..........

It's nice huh?

Yes it's a lovely design with pretty blocks and a nice layout.  Herein lies my problem...it's nice and I'm getting a little bored with nice so I decided to jazz it up with interesting borders.  But more of that later... there seems to be some issues with this quilt top which I want to talk about first.

THREE BLOCKS

There are 3 blocks which make up this top - one for the main body, one for the internal frame and one for the corners.  All are easy to do ....... check them out.

Main Block - Internal Frame Block - Corner Block

The main blocks I had no issues with and they came together easily.  There do seem to be instruction errors though for both the internal and corner blocks.  If you are going to make this project, look at the pictures and work out your own formulas and there should be no problems.  Here is what I found......

INTERNAL FRAME

There are several units to the internal frame block which, when made up, needs to measure 5" square.  If you follow the instructions in the book you won't get this final measurement, you'll get a bit of a mess.  However, if you make the 4 patches as per instructions, then adjust the other units to fit, you'll be fine.  Let me clarify........

The 4 patch units need to be sewn to a plain piece.  The instructions suggest cutting the plain units 3" x 3 1/2".  If you do that, you'll get this....

Oops!

Next, you need to make the little centre strip.  The instructions suggest you cut the middle strip 1" wide and the 2 side strips at 3" each and sew them together....

Uh oh - this piece is 6" wide - I don't think it's gonna fit!

LOL

But an easy fix to get your 5" block.

CORNER BLOCKS

It's off to a good start but then the wheels fall off.  The instructions ask you to cut a 1" wide strip x 4" long and sew to each side of the centre unit.  Cutting the side strip 1 1/2 " wide  and 3" long would work better. 

3" square centre unit

To the bottom of this unit the instructions say to cut a dark strip 4 1/4 inches long and attach 2 x 1 1/2" coloured squares to each end.  Um  I see a problem here.......

Whoops

A 3" strip would work much better.......... :)

I've notified Harriet and Carrie about the issues I had with this project but I've not yet heard back.  The errors could be a misunderstanding on my part and I'll leave it at that until Harriet has had a chance to take a look at it.  In the meantime, I suggest you look at the illustrations before cutting all of your fabrics as they are the best clue on how the blocks fit together.  I made a couple of 'test' blocks before making the rest which proved to be an excellent idea!  Anyway, even if you do cut incorrectly, they are easily fixed as they tend to be cut too large rather than too small.

BORDERS

This quilt has 2 borders added on - a narrow coloured on and a plain wide one.  Very effective, very nice.  Adding the first border is interesting as you have those angled corners to deal with.  Working from pictures of Harriet's quilt in the book it's not that hard to figure out how to do it (and thanks to Ali for her advice as well).

Leave long tails on the ends of the border...........

add a piece across the corner........

sew and press.......ta da!

Add the corner triangle and trim square

At this point I knew I didn't want to have simple plain black borders, I wanted something more interesting.  I played with the idea of adding prairie points and found a technique by Rami Kim which made continuous prairie points.

I made one small strip, decided I liked the way it curved and mentally added this to the border.  I then pulled out the scraps - the test blocks and left over strips and had a play with them.  This is the result...

The outer borders are different widths and a bit more interesting. 

I've re-named it "The not so nice quilt"

The prairie point band isn't stitched down, so I can quit around and under it.  I may leave it as it is or attach it down, I've not decided yet.

The quilting for this will have to wait, as it seems no one in Hobart stocks black batting anymore.  I've had to mail order from overseas and it'll be a bit of a wait.

Vol 2 - Project 10 - Carrie's Confetti

Another long time between posts - but despite distractions of Christmas and a bit of travel, I did manage another finish.  This one is for my next door neighbour Pauline, who chose the initial fabrics ages ago.  The project in the book is quite small so I've doubled the size, and Pauline has a quilt large enough to wrap herself up in.

Carrie's version

Project 10 is a strippy quilt with a tiny 'windowpane' strip running down the triangles.  Those strips are the biggest challenge for me in this project.

These are not the fabrics we used - changes were made!

Because I changed the size of the quilt I had to change fabrics.  The mauve became dark blue, the black became bright pink and some other fabrics were added to make the extra blocks. All the fabrics were based around the butterfly print.

After making the blocks, sorting out the size of the triangles is the first challenge - not an easy one for the mathematically disinclined.  Taking advise from the book, I used graph paper to sort out the measurements and where to place the small strip.

With the strip sewn in, cutting is really wasteful as you can't turn your triangle around and cut from top.  Carrie has a solution in the book for making a strip on both sides, which works brilliantly and saves heaps of fabric - but it's complicated to do the math.

Much more economical to do it this way and save on fabric

When I make side setting triangles, I like to make them a little large, then trim them back....

For this project, that doesn't work!  The triangles must be cut to fit exactly or those little strips will end up in the wrong place.  Using the Creative Grids side setting triangle ruler, I was able to cut the triangles down to the right size.  

I also had to unpick some of the practice triangles as I ran short of the blue fabric....sadly, some of these had badly stretched and had wonky stripes, but I had no other choice other than to use them. They are quite noticeable - sorry Pauline!

QUILTING

I've used a wool batting in this quilt which wants to shift around despite heaps of pins. Ditch stitching helped a bit.

You may have guessed, Pauline is a butterfly fan - she has butterflies all over her house - so the obvious quilting pattern to choose, is butterflies! 

I had a butterfly border stencil - perfect for a strippy quilt - I used it on the butterfly fabric with invisible nylon and of course it's invisible. 

For the blocks I decided on a simple cobweb design.

The side triangles also got the butterfly treatment - this time I used pink rayon thread.

Halfway quilted!

PAULINE'S QUILT

She likes it!

CHERIE'S QUILT

Over Christmas I was lucky enough to have family come to stay.  My daughter--in-law Cherie, wanted to make a quilt so I let her loose in my fabric stash.  They were only here for 2 weeks and had lots of things to do, so we only got the top finished...............

Good job Cherie - now aren't you glad I made you unpick those badly cut ones?

Small progression and some NHP's

Hello!  I know it's been a while and I apologise for that.  A great holiday in Western Australia, followed by a bit of a medical issue - nothing drastic but unable to sew.  After that my computer decided to kill the hard drive which caused quite a kerfuffle.  But all those are excuses, the real reason for my not blogging is that I've been working on some Non Harriet Projects which now aren't secret anymore.

PROJECT 8 - FIVE PATCH CHAIN
This one is almost finished, with just some quilting to go.  It's been ditch-stitched and I want to do some stencil work in the blocks.  Hopefully, I'll get to that soon.

NHP 1 - HARVEY'S QUILT - PLANET SPOTTYDOT

I put up some pics a while back (May actually) of the quilt I was making for grandson Harvey's birthday in September.  It was put on the back burner while I made the rush quilt for my brother, then the holiday rahda rahda rahda.......  Poor Harvey has been very patient but he finally received his birthday quilt this week.

 Can you believe I forgot to take a photo of the finished quilt before I posted it?!!  This is the quilt before I washed it - it still has chalk markings and the aliens don't have any eyes. 

Harvey with his quilt

NHP 2 - NEW YORK ART DECO II

Earlier this year my sister Kaye visited New York City and brought me back some fabulous fabric featuring New York art deco buildings.  I made myself a queen size quilt - using the deco fabric as the feature surrounded by complimentary fabrics sewn into nine patches.  I had some of the deco fabric left over and made this up into a smaller lap quilt for my sister.  I had to use different complementary fabrics, as I had no leftovers from the first one.

Kaye's Quilt - New York Art Deco II

Hmmm - Kaye's quilt turned out nicer than mine.  So now I'm in the process of unpicking the queen sized New York Art Deco so I can re-do it using nicer fabrics and a better layout.  *sigh*.  I'll work at it on and off but don't expect to see the finished quilt on the blog for a while yet.

Quilting this top became a bit of a headache.  I decided to make a semi circle on the lower right of the quilt, and fill this with a Baptist Fan design.  Radiating out from the circle I wanted straight lines.  A bit like a sunrise and very suitable for an Art Deco quilt.  Quilting the rays were no problem, but I had lots of issues with the scallops in the Baptist Fans.

I used a stencil and chalk marked inside the circle, taking out all the pins first.  Mistake!  The batting is a wool/poly and likes to shift around inside the quilt, it's not clingy like cotton batting is.  Anyway I ended up with large puckers inside the circle and had to unpick the quilting.

For the second attempt it made sense to quilt this top from the back as I found the design was really hard to follow over the busy print.  After stencilling I pinned the life out of it!

My next mistake was the thread.  I chose a beautiful variegated black/grey King Tut cotton. The fabric was printed in black/white/grey so it seemed a good choice. 

The design quilted in this thread looks quite odd, because the stitches suddenly disappear when sewn over a matching colour in the print, making the design look disjointed.  Because I was quilting from the back I didn't discover this effect right away and had no desire to unpick the work a second time.  So Kaye is stuck with quirky quilting - maybe she won't notice!  I forgot to take a pic, but it's something to think about next time I consider quilting with variegated thread. 

Finally, I really need to work on my starts/stops as they remain messy.  Usually the messiness is confined to the back, but this time, the little lumps and jumps landed on the front - yay for a busy print!  I have a quilting workshop coming up next year, so hopefully will get some expert help on this issue.

PROJECT 10 - CARRIE'S CONFETTI

I've made a start on this one and am hoping to have it assembled by the weekend (today is Wednesday).  It's gone through a few fabric changes in the process and I'll blog about that another time.

Fabric selection attempt 2

DID YOU KNOW.................?

Where did mother-of-pearl buttons come from?  I found out when I visited a pearl museum in Broome, Western Australia.

:)

Vol 2 - Project 8 - Five Patch Chain - Quilting

A BIG THANK YOU
Hi everyone.  First I'd like to say thank you to those who continue to support me.  After my brother's death I lost my sewing mojo and struggled a bit to get back into the swing of things.  The support and comments of the readers and followers of my blog have made a huge difference and now I am back with as much enthusiasm as ever.  Hugs to all of you!!

QUILTING - FREE FORM (EEK)!
The Five Patch Chain - or the Red & White Birds quilt as I refer to it is now finished.  This is the one I had all the problems with by accidentally using polyester instead of cotton for the white fabric.  By quilting it rather heavily, I've managed to 'quilt out' a lot of the stretchy seams which plagued this top.

Keeping a promise to myself to get out of the quilting box and do some free-form practice on this quilt - I was surprised at how easy it actually was to do.  Keeping another promise to myself, I also tried silk thread - love, love, love it!  What a shame it's so expensive as it's such a delight to quilt with.  It makes a nice alternative to the invisible nylon I usually use.  I've used a wool batting and free motioned around all the applique first, so the birds puff up nicely

Some piccys of the silk, free form quilted blocks...... I played with simple designs - loops and swirls combined with my usual stipple and echo.

Loops

Swirls

Echo

Stipple

Echo, Swirl, Loop combo

For the side setting triangles, I went back to my comfort zone and used a stencil.

  and swirled the corner triangles..... (oops, missed a bit)!

The rest was simply gridded............ here's half the back.

Overall I'm very pleased with the result of what started out to be a disastrous project.

FIRST WASH - THE SCARY PART

If free form quilting was scary for me, that's nothing compared to putting a red and white quilt in the washing machine.  I have a front loader, so once it's in there's no going back.  I threw in two Colour Catchers and crossed fingers.  The result was interesting.  The Colour Catchers did their job brilliantly, but for one single fabric.  Check this out..........

Before and after washing - one single fabric has run, but confined the pink to itself.  Disappointing, but I can live with it.  I should point out that the misbehaving fabric was a very cheap one - finding red spots on white proved difficult, so I had to go with what was available.  Lesson learned.

You may notice from the full quilt picture at the top, the blackbird has been quilted with red thread instead of white.  I echo quilted it, which looked awful then tried to improve the look with stippling.  That only made it worse.  I hate it but am too lazy to pull it out.

THE NEXT PROJECT

I finished the blocks for the next project, then decided to make it longer so I have another 6 chain blocks to do......... but it's coming along nicely.

I also made this dragon block.  It's designed by Australian quilter Eileen Campbell from her book Medieval Designs for Applique.  It was going to be the centre of a medallion quilt as part of a Round Robin project, where participants add borders to the central design.  Sadly I'll no longer be taking part in this fun project so am not sure what to do with this 20" block.

A BIT OF A BREAK

Ironic that now I have my sewing mojo back, I won't be able to sew for a while.  I'm off travelling, so the current projects will have to wait till I get back.  Meanwhile, I have taught myself to blanket stitch by hand and will take along something to work on while sitting in cars and trains.  Wonder how long that will last, as I'm not really patient enough for hand sewing!