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, )