Blue and White All Over

I've started a new quilt. I thought I'd post an update today and found out I haven't posted about it at all yet. So get ready for a long one because I'd hate to miss one step. :)

I did sketch out a design, or maybe I should say the outline of a design. I'm sure I'll be adapting as I go.

Of course it's obvious what this
quilt will look like, right? :)

RING 1
The place to start was the center medallion. The very centre was a circle quartered by a cross. I put it together with English paper piecing. It was a challenge to do the narrow white strips since the seam allowance was wider than the piece itself, but I managed.

I then sewed it inside a piece of white fabric. As I recall, I did it with a freezer paper method. (More on that below when I used it again.)

RING 2
The next ring was put together with foundation paper piecing (again, way more on that below) and then sewn to the centre circle.

RING 3
I was using a different set of blue fabrics for each ring. There wasn't so much contrast in the first two rings but the next one had a lot more:

I couldn't figure out how to get the result I wanted with this ring so I did a two-step process. First, I foundation paper pieced some triangles.

Then, I appliqued more triangles to the ring to fill in the empty spaces:

Here the triangle is pinned for
basting.

Once the ring was done, I cut a piece of freezer paper with a hole in it. The hole is the exact size of the opening I wanted. I then centred it on the ring and ironed it down.

After that, I trimmed the fabric in the middle to an even width (about 1/2" from the edge of the freezer paper). No more pictures, but the next step is to clip the seam allowance and then press the allowance back over the freezer paper.

Once the seam allowance is pressed back, you place the piece onto the centre circle and glue it in place. (Gluing the "right" side of the seam allowance to the "right" side of the circle.)

Next you lift up the ring enough to fit it under the sewing machine needle and sew right along the edge of the freezer paper with a zipper foot (or similar foot). Clear as mud? Oh ya, and make sure you remove the freezer paper.

The process looked straight forward on the video and the result looked so precise, but it wasn't quite all that when I did it for my first time. (No surprise.) Anyway, here was the result on this piece:

RING 4
The next ring was a series of blue and white blocks with some curved edges. I decided to use English paper piecing.

When it was assembled, I attached it to the centre circle by hand applique. Since the edges of the ring were already turned under, I just had to put it on top of the centre circle, pin it in place, and sew.

Showing the appliqued ring
from the reverse side.

Once sewn on, I trimmed the seam allowance of the centre circle so it was nice and even:

And here it is from the front:

It was now about 12.5" across.

When I put the circle against the pattern, the size was a little off:

RING 5
When I copied the outer ring it became obvious that my printer had not been copying at 100% - it was using some "fit" formula! Arrgh! This didn't make such a difference on the smaller rings, but it was very obvious on the largest ring. It also explained why my circle didn't quite fit.

I used another copier to get a true copy of the outer ring. I cut the ring into three segments and used the paper for foundation piecing. It was quite a production as I did the three segments at once. (That way I could chain piece and didn't have to cut the thread after each seam.)

Step one - line up the next piece of fabric with the edge of the existing piecing, with the paper pattern folded back out of the way.

Step two - flip over the paper and pin the pieces in place:

Step three - sew along the seam line.

Step four - trim the seam allowance.

Usually I would trim to a 1/4" allowance but in this case with the seam so close together, I actually trimmed an angled allowance, leaving only 1/8" at the centre and 1/4" on the outside edge.

Step five - flip over the new piece and press. (I used my little wooden "iron".)

Step six - fold paper pattern over on the next seam line.

I used a piece of cardboard by lining it up with the seam and pressing the paper over it.

That may seam unnecessarily fussy but I find it the easiest and quickest.

Step 6 - trim the fabric 1/4" from the edge of the paper.

And then you start over lining up the next piece with this edge. Sounds like fun right?

You can see here how I had the three segments going in sequence:

Once they were all pieced, I sewed the three segments together and made a ring. Then it was time to remove all the papers.

Sounds like more fun, right?

The final ring turned out to be a little large - the circle wasn't big enough to allow for a seam allowance. I was stumped for a minute, but then I realized that if I just removed a few segments of the final ring, it would shrink a little bit, and probably enough. So that's what I did. I took out only four blue segments, and the circle fit. (Hurray for fudging!)

I ended up hand basting the circle onto the ring along the seam line and then sewed the seam by machine. It wasn't ideal because I hadn't pressed the seams correctly, but I've decided it will do.

Here is the final medallion on the design wall:

Next up is a border to make this circle a square.

Building a Birdhouse...Quilt Block

Ok, so the deadline for the fair was only three days away and I still had not made my raffle quilt block! The theme this year was "The Birdhouse" and I had a few ideas rolling around, but nothing concrete enough to build on.

First step, then was to do a Google image search for "birdhouse quilt block." I picked out these ones as blocks with possibilities:

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1. Nice, simple, with possibilities. Includes simple piecing and applique.

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2. Love the detail of this one. It's actually an embroidery pattern, but I'm sure you can imagine it as an applique block, with some of the details simplified. (For one thing, I probably would have dropped all the flowers and just done branches with leaves. That would be enough.) But do you remember I only had three days (and had to maintain the rest of my life too)? This was going to be too much. Pretty though.

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3. This is an ingenious simple way to do it! Cute too.

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4. Similar to above with a few more details. This is the one I most closely followed.

The easiest way to do that center part was paper piecing so the next step was to draw out the pattern. I didn't have special paper piecing paper, so I used copy paper. Just used two pieces and cut and taped them together to get a 12" square. (I would have to remember to add the seam allowances.)

I was given fabric to work with. (That's the $5 kit you buy.) This year there was a drab blue grey "sky" fabric, which was obviously meant to be the background. (It was the largest piece.) To that they added small pieces of a very plain dull red, a darkish green with a floral pattern, a dark brown spotted fabric and some dark wood grain. I could add two coordinating fabrics of my own. Well, first thing, I needed a bird. For the second piece, I went with a nice cheery yellow that had a pattern in red and green to pick up on the colors I was given.

I centered the bird in the lower triangle area and started adding rows around it:

Ok, so the only bird I had was a chicken. I know, they
don't live in birdhouses. Did I tell you I only had three
days and nothing could get done until I had a bird?
"Make do" is what I say!

And adding...

and adding...

and building...

and building

until I had a birdhouse surrounded by "sky."

All that was left was to add the base and roof. I could have done with this with paper piecing too, but it made it quite a bit more complicated and I decided applique was the way to go. The pieces were rectangles and easy to work with. I cut them out and pinned them in place:

Then I sewed them down in my best tiny applique stitches. Here's a close up of the roof section:

I think I did a nice job folding the one piece over the other. (I did the roof in two pieces instead of trying to cut out one angle-shaped piece.) This was the trickiest part of the applique and it was not tricky. (Of course there are always a hundred ways something can go wrong, and usually only one way it can go right.)

I am not counting on any prizes with this block this year. If I had started earlier and had more time, I think an appliqued bird would have upped the difficulty enough to be in the running. Or I could have added some branches and leaves like #2 above.

My real dream was to do a scene inside the birdhouse with a view out the peephole, but I couldn't make myself sit down and design it. That wouldn't have won either, but I would have been happy about it.

But that's alright. It's a fairly good block, and at least it is well made. And finally I have a year where I'm not squeaking by on the 12.5" requirement--I made it big enough I could cut it down. And someone has to be in the outer row supporting the winners in the middle, right?

Mini Quilt Retreat

My sister, Kim, came to visit this past week and I had the brilliant--if I may say so myself--idea of exchanging our usual "girls only" trip to the quilt store for some actual quilting. We both have more projects that need sewing than money that needs spending right now anyway, so it worked out great.

I arranged some time and facilities at my church and we had an entire afternoon of sewing.

(Don't we look so pleased with ourselves?)

Kim especially wanted me to show her paper (foundation) piecing. (Apparently she missed my tutorial.) She is making a crib quilt with hearts galore, including four different paper pieced blocks.

Here she is displaying her first paper pieced block:
Isn't it lovely?

That evening we got in a little more quilting at home after her kids were tucked into bed, and Kim managed to finish her second block.

It is my favourite of her heart patterns. (The one on the left.) The blocks are laying on our current top pick for the sashing fabric. If you thought my toddler quilt was pink, this one will make you think you've fallen into a bubblegum bubble.

And what was I working on? My Mini Crossed Canoes quilt. Here it is a year ago when I was deciding how to apply the outer pieced border:
I got very interested in mini quilts a few years ago and this idea appealed to me as a way to try it out. True mini quilts are scaled down versions of large quilt patterns. (Some of them with the tiniest of pieces.)

Not wanted to commit to that much, I instead used 1.5" inch (finished size) blocks to make up one large block pattern. The finished quilt will be about 20" to a side, well under the 24" which I think is the standard limit for a mini quilt.

It also gave me a chance to play around with colour, mixing and matching shades but with the intent to have it all blend. I never realized how much I love blue and yellow until I could hardly turn away from all the fat quarters in their lovely colours and patterns!

And how far did I get? Well, I had marked and quilted on the yellow portions of the outside border last April (2009)
and then got kind of stuck on how to mark the blue portions. My water soluble marker is blue. The white chalk and chalk pencil weren't working. On our quilt retreat I tried one more marking tool that I found in my sewing box: a water soluble chalk pencil. And despite being blue as well, it worked! I marked up one section, got it quilted, and then got bold and quilted the other blue section without marking at all. After all the practice, it worked out well.

Because of a few interruptions (and tutoring Kim), that's all I finished on the actual retreat. But when we were sewing at home, I started the free motion quilting on the main body of the quilt. It took me a while to get there, but I had decided to quilt in a style that I had seen on a lot of art and landscape quilts in the magazines the last few years.

It's very simple but remarkably effective at blending the blue blocks together. And it reminds me of water somehow. (It is a Crossed Canoes pattern after all.) I got the two easy sections done, and then plunged in and got the two harder sections done too!

Then I was stalled because I don't have a firm plan for the rest. I think I'm going to draw out a water lily in the middle section and have some "tendrils" go out onto the yellow sections. Maybe in green thread. We'll see.

Being loath to waste sewing time, however, I took care of some of the more mundane tasks. Like cutting and seaming 90 inches of binding:
(That's left over fabric from the square dancing outfit I made in our clubs colours!)

And then I worked on making some piping with my Piping Hot Binding kit.

I did not need to buy a special piping foot as my buttonhole foot (I think that's what it is; foot C if you have a Viking Sapphire) worked very well. It has a groove in the bottom, it has a ledge on the left side that the piping can run against, and by moving my needle to the right just one click, I could sew my own perfect piping. Life is good.

We had a great time, although I must say we talk at lot less when we're sewing than when we're shopping. There was a lot of concentrating going on which didn't leave a lot of room in the brain for "catching up." But whenever we were both on a little break, we were happy to admire each other's work and tell each other how good we were doing! Nothing like a lot of mutual encouragement!

Paper Pieced Maple Leaf

Further to my foundation paper piecing tutorial, I now offer you a pattern for a Maple Leaf that I designed in 2003, soon after discovering foundation paper piecing.
I framed mine with log cabin strips and put it into a pillow to be displayed around the July 1/July 4 holidays. (We have to celebrate both around here. July 1 is Canada Day for those of you who don't know. And for the vastly smaller number that don't know: July 4 is the US Independence Day celebration.)

This pattern is not for the beginner because it is imperfectly designed. A good design should require you to only add one piece at a time. But, in several places, the only way I could make this work was to sew two sections together first before sewing them onto the main piece.

Here is the design which I give you permission to download and print for your own personal use:
Section one has green numbers; section two has black numbers; and section three, purple. The pieces you see labeled as "3a" "3b," "4a" "4b," and "8a" "8b" are the ones you have to piece together first and then sew onto the larger section so that the seam matches the line. It's a little tricky but with some experience and some futzing, I'm sure you can get it. In the grand assembly, you would sew section 1 to section 2, and then sew on section 3. And don't forget to add a seam allowance to the outside border.

Hope you enjoy. July isn't that far away...

Leave a comment and/or link if you make your own Maple Leaf--I'd love to see it!
-Canadian Christina