Quilt show this Sunday

The Saskatoon Modern Quilt Guild is having a quilt show this Sunday in Saskatoon, so if you are looking for something colorful and fun, why not go???

I know that the members have been working hard to complete many new projects to show,

For our part, we will be sponsoring the category of mini quilts again!   Minis have been quite popular for the past couple of years. I like to see them on instagram,   this is an example --- see how cute they can be? 

  I think they are fun to try out new techniques, or when you need some instant gratification of a finished project. 

Maybe I should turn some of my ufos into minis 😉,   

 Oh yes, I will have a quilt in the show too!  Remember my epic english paper piecing project from last year, the New Hexagon Millifiore Quilt?   It is indeed finished, and will be there.  I had to buy a longarm machine in order to quilt it!  (joke!😃),  well, sorta,...  

It was a lot of fun to quilt, to plan the quilting I ended up using vinyl placed over the blocks and a dry erase marker to try out patterns, 

truly, I had such a good time making this quilt, from start to finish...

Quilting on the Millifiore Quilt

I just linked up to a couple of wip wednesdays, the Canadian TN & TN, (the Needle and Thread Network),   and Freshly Pieced, http://www.freshlypieced.com/2015/11/wip-wednesday-spin-cycle.html,   so if you landed here from those links, Welcome!  

pulled out my millefiori quilt a week or two ago, intending to finish it by the end of the month. I had started this quilt earlier this year and had completed the top sometime this spring. It was quite an engrossing project.  

I had been wondering about how to quilt this type of project and my first thoughts were to just do a simple meander over the whole thing. It is a pretty complex design so I don't know how much the quilting will show up on it.

but  I added borders to it the other day, and now it measures up to be 96" x 114" and that seems like a lot of meandering to do. Meandering  can become a bit tedious on a large project.

so I have just decided to have a little more fun with the quilting and do something different in each of the blocks. There is still a bit of stippling in the little white and blue hexagons that form the background.

I think all so after having done one Rosette that I will switch out the white top thread for different colors as I go.

today I am trying to think of different patterns to put into each rosette. I'm trying this technique where you place vinyl over the quilt itself and use a dry erase marker to plan out your designs. This seems to be working pretty well. 

you can erase the pattern later and reuse the vinyl over and over

I still have quite a bit of planning to do.

A Finish

I was scrolling back through some previous posts and I realize something. It seems that I often talk about things that I am starting, but not so much about when I finish them.

for instance I may have mentioned one time that I got some fabric to make a bag.  

well I did actually make the bag. And so I want to show it to you.

I used a pattern by Abbey lane called the Beatle Bag

i'm not sure why it has that name. I thought maybe it was because it looks like a beetle, but it is not spelled that way so I don't know.

The pattern included the plastic inserts. 

 One of the reasons I procrastinated in  making the bag is I wasn't sure how these things were inserted. However I just followed the instructions and sure enough it all worked out fine.

there are several pockets to put things in, and they are see through, which is great.  they are very sturdy, so I think they'll be durable.  

I am using it as a travel case for my english paper piecing project.  

each of the large blocks has its own pocket and I am using one for the equipment such as scissors and needles and thread, and glue stick for basting. also, one section to store receipts!

I have photos on my ipad to refer to for the pattern placement, like this, 

and like this....

there is a pocket on each side of the cover, but I havent used those.  they are the right size to store a rotary cutter. 

this is it rolled up and fastened

All in all, I am pretty happy with it!   

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!  Don't you love summer? 

Millefiore assembly is starting....

I had the rosettes for my millefiori quilt stuck to my design wall. The problem was that every time I entered the room it's sucked me in and I would become engrossed by that project.

  I realized that I had to get this monster off of my wall. So a couple of nights ago I started to assemble the separate elements into one piece. This means I had to commit to a layout

after a little bit more tweaking, this is what I have finally settled upon.

I knew that it would take a long time for me to assemble this by hand stitching, so I used the machine. I had come across a wonderful tutorial by Carole Carr, which you can find here, and had practiced it a little bit, and had quite like the results. It is particularly useful on those long edges. It uses a teeny tiny zigzag stitch and monofilament thread on top with regular piecing thread in the Bobbin.  I had used this similar technique years ago to appliqué stems in a flower border. Very similar technique.  I tried assembling the smaller elements in the individual hexagons using this technique as well, and that worked okay too, except that I was more limited in how the seam allowances were directed on the back of the work.  so, I have settled upon hand stitching the hexies, and machine piecing the larger units.  

this shows the back as I was starting to piece together and take out the extra papers where the edges of the rosettes now are joined

I was quite surprised at how many papers I removed!  this photo doesn't really give a good indication, because I think by the time I had assembled the top section of the quilt, I had a few hundred papers that I had removed.  The only ones remaining are those in the outside perimeter.

so, there it is, the top section, all together.  It is now neatly folded up and tucked out of sight.

the part remaining on my wall is the bottom section, about a third of the quilt,

sorry about some of the photos being a bit blurry- I've been using my ipad to take all my photos lately and the lighting isn't that great in my room either.

I drew a red line on my plan to tell me what is already done, and what I have yet to do.

So, that is that for a while.  I have lots of stitching yet to do, but after making a concerted effort on this quilt for the past few weeks, I think I will now have a bit of time to work on some other projects as well.....  
By the way, Has anyone else who is doing this quilt thought about how to do the quilting on it later? 

Millefiore moving along...

for the past few weeks I have been mostly working away on my Millefiore Quilt, 

this is what I've got up on my design wall, 

I wandered away from the original plan, as set out by Katja, since I wanted to make the rosettes more fully round in places, 

then, I modified it again, making it more rectangular and filling in background spaces with a blue diamond pattern,

the rosettes are quite a lot of fun, and I've even designed a few of my own, which makes me even more impressed by all the wonderful designs Katja has done!

someone asked about the way I made the paper templates.  The advantage of making them yourself is that you can modify designs and make new shapes. Plus, you could make as many or as few as you need. 

so this is how I do it, it is actually very simple.

I just go to a site called incompetech.com which is a free graph paper generator. You can print off graph paper of equilateral triangles in any size.  Choose the .5 inch size. then, print off a stack of this paper on to 67 lb cover stock.  (. Some people may need to turn off the option in Adobe's Acrobat reader "shrink to fit" which may resize the grid slightly to fit your printer's printable area.). 

 then, it is easy to just cut the shapes you need, 

i keep all my previous shapes organized in a booklet that has clear plastic pockets, 

this is the start of the rosette for May!

(You can see earlier posts about his project by scrolling back)

Millefiore Progress

I have been chipping away at Rosette 2 of the New Hexagon Millefiori Quilt along, and I have only to sew on some more of the outer round,

If you are doing the project as well, you will probably notice that I have wandered away from the pattern in a couple of details...

At some point I decided to add another row of hexagons to the top and bottom of the design to make it rectangular instead of square,

This is the plan I made to keep things sort of organized.

Also, I changed the configuration of a couple of the rosettes.  This happened when I was doing Rosette 2 and I decided that I wanted to see more of the pattern that was forming in the outer ring.  You know how one thing leads to another...

The other thing that happened was that i decided to sub-piece some of the larger diamonds.  

My rosette needed a bit of an accent so i changed a plain diamond to contain a smaller diamond of adeep  color accent,

 Also, when I chose gold for those diamonds that make up Block 6, the print became too busy, and the solid was too boring, so I decided to use them both,

Now it is March, and the instructions for Rosette 3 are available!   So of course I have started to get things moving on it,  .... 

getting all my paper pieces ready for it..... I just photocopy a halfinch equilateral triangle graph paper on to cardstock and cut out the needed shapes,  which is quite a relaxing activity in itself.  

These are my first two rosettes!

the EPP continues

I've been working on the first Rosette for the millefiori hexagon quilt along.  Its the largest one in the quilt:  its the orange one in the diagram below.  

This is a little photo journey of my progress

First up is to get organized.... figure out how many of each shape to prepare, gather supplies, 

then cut out the fabric pieces to baste to each template

while sewing the first round, I wasnt sure about the hexagone I made for the center, which was the orange one.  I had sewn several hexies from the book, so I auditioned them,

while laying out the pieces of the first round, 

I tried placing the second round hexies with the pink bits on the outer edge, 

then with them on the inside edge of the round.

in the end I decided to have them on the inside.  I sewed another possible center,

and then I sewed a third one... which is the one I decided to use,

This is how it looked with the second round

Then, to prepare the pieces for the third round..

glue basting is saving my bacon.  I probably wouldnt do this with thread basting the pieces, but glue basting goes way faster, 

There are 18 pieced hexies on the third round, so I had to play with them before I sewed them on to the rosette,

that was fun.  

then, I sewed them on.  And this is what it looks like now!

It is quite big, over thirty inches across,

I did a little bit of fussy cutting in the white ring fabrics, 

Well, now I am all ready for next months blocks!,

Remember, if you want to participate in this project, its easy.  All you need to get is a copy of the book, The New Hexagon, and sign up on Katja's web site and she will email you the instructions each month, 

there is a facebook group for it, and hashtags for instagram too, so its easy to see what fabrics others are using...   (just check my previous post for the links, )