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)

English Paper Piecing with glue

There is a great new book out by Canadian author Katya Marek, called the New Hexagon:

it has patterns for 52 pieced hexagons for English Paper Piecing, which is a hand sewing technique wgere you bastefabrics over paper templates and then hand stitch the pieces together with a whip stitch.   Later you remove the paper templates, leaving just the pieced block.  

Making these are surprisingly relaxing.  you just photocopy the patterns on to cardstock and cut them apart to get your templates, 

the best thing I learned is that you can use this little glue pen to attach the fabrics to the paper templates.  I had seen this before with a regular glue stick, but this one is only 1/4" wide, and the glue goes on blue but dries clear so you can see where you've applied it.  (nb. apparantly Roxannes Glue Baste it does not work well for this)

I am an enthusiastic convert.  I did all these 24 pieces in 10 minutes!  If I had basted them with thread it probably would have taken a couple of hours.

i did enough templates at one sitting for several blocks that are ready to stitch together...

Im not sure yet how i will combine the blocks... the book has several ideas, but i think i will make blocks until I get tired of making them, and then see how many I have

Im just using a pile of happy bright colors from my stash.... perfect for a day thats overcast outside.

I love english Paper Piecing, and now I love it even more!