Hexagon Millefiore Update, July 2018

July 15, 2018July 16, 2018 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

Rosette 10b Finished

And with this Rosette (#10b), I finished up The New Hexagon Millefiore Quilt-A-Long.

All Rosettes_OPQuilt

Contractually. At least according to the rules of the The New Hexagon Millefiore Game.

But I really hate the crenellated edges. I don’t mind the zig-zag edges on the sides, and have loved what others have done, by appliqueing the quilt down to a solid border.

Millefiore border maybes

But for this quilt, these colors, every border fabric I chose just looked terrible. Clunky. Admittedly they are kind of wild, but really, the quilt is kind of wild.

Millefiore border fillins

Instead, I’m try to fill them in.

All Rosettesbeginning fillin

You can see what the first two look like. There are 9 crenelations on the top and 9 on the bottom, so two down, 16 to go. This is actually not as hard as I thought, as the fabric choices have already been made, and it’s just sort of filling in and figuring out how the pieces will work. I am trying not to use just one-fabric half-hexie blocks, but instead, create interesting seamed fill-in pieces. I figure the sides will be faster–just a sort of background fabric from the nearest rosette.

Stay tuned.

Research photos (culled from the web, from Instagram and from the Facebook page):

Millefiore v5 — This one looks great with the appliqued-to-borders treatment.

Millefiore v12 — Not technically a Hexagon Millefiore quilt, but those borders!

Millefiore v2

Millefiore quilt again — Another that is not a hexagon-based EPP, but I love the way they broke the borders.

Millefiore v4 Millefiore v1 Millefiore v3

Millefiore v8 — This one filled in many edges, and moved a lot of the rosettes around.

Millefiore v7 Millefiore v9

Many of these quilts turned the design on the its side, or upside down. I should note that I also changed the lower edge of mine, melding 4 different rosettes into one gigantor rosette, plus I tweaked a few more places (there is NO star in the middle of my quilt, for example).

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Millefiore Quilt July 18_2 — My leftovers (paper pulled out that was still in good shape). I’m using them to build the edges.

Oh! Christmas Tree Quilt

December 5, 2016April 30, 2017 Elizabeth E.21 Comments

Oh! Christmas Tree Quilt
Quilt #175
Began January 2016 • Finished December 2016

It’s finally finished. I started this once I saw the QuiltMania magazine it was featured in. It is a pattern from Wendy Williams of Flying Fish Kits. I had a companion in the making of this, in Wendy Welsh from New Zealand. She was about a month ahead of me in construction and was such a great help, especially in untangling the borders dilemma. All of the posts about the making of this quilt are referenced in the Quilt-A-Longs tab, up above.

I did finish it by my goal of December 1st, but had to find the right ~~locale~~ accessories, like the lumber-jack looking guy above. (By the way, the most important man in this photo is unseen, holding up the Christmas Tree quilt. Thanks, dear!)

I had written about how I quilted the center: a meander with tiny stars here and there.

As usual, I printed out my quilt with partial transparency and doodled and doodled, coming into a dead end always. But finally, inspired by an idea from *here,* I chose to do swirls around my stars with a spiral in the center, linking them all together.

I quilted the cream background fabric around the wool felt appliqués, then in around those red triangle points, leaving them unquilted. I did outline them in a straight stitch, helping them to stand out from the background.

My husband Dave and I went out for a photo shoot as the sun was dimming, first hitting the tree lot at Teen Challenge (below), a charity near our house.

And then we went looking for more evergreens for backdrops, a near herculean task in Southern California. We finally found these pines in the university parking lot. I told my husband that Marsha, in Vermont, could photograph hers out in the woods amid the snow, but that typical to our climate and locale, we have to pose in an asphalt parking lot.

The back is a series of panels and fabrics from Cori Dantini from her Merry Stitches line, purchased at Quilt Market this past May and available now. It’s fun to use them on the back.

This quilt (or parts of it) have gone to Spain, all around my town, and then finally tucked in at home to be finished with the quilting. I took inspiration from all of those who followed along on the Quilt-A-Long and on Instagram, but am indebted to my husband for his love of my quilting and constant support. Lastly, the design for Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus are found here on the blog. Uusually we say that what’s important about Christmas isn’t found under the tree.

But in this case, it is.

I hope your Christmas season is merry and bright and filled with the love of our Savior.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzjFEMmM0Xs

Halloween QAL · Quilt-A-Long · Quilts

Hallowe’en 1904 QAL–Step Six • Final Post

July 13, 2016January 12, 2017 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

First up, some business to take care of.

I recently had a post about creativity/uniqueness/Uppercase/Collaboration, where I had a giveaway with two Uppercase magazines and a charm pack of Uppercase Fabric. So many of your comments were incredibly thoughtful about the process of creativity and the quality of being unique. Several were very encouraging to me, which was quite appreciated and touched my heart. Of course, I’ve pasted them in my journal for those less-than-stellar creative days. Thank you all so very much.

I used the True Random Number Generator (I like to spread the love around the random number generators), and it picked Mary, of NeedledMom. Email is on it’s way to you, Mary, and I’ll get the treats mailed off to you this week!

Okay, back to Halloween 1904. This was our schedule:

Step 1 (Preparation): February 13, 2016–buy all the fabrics and find the pattern. Patterns are available from Primitive Gatherings. The quilt measures 90 by 90, which is too large for me, so I’m only doing nine blocks. Each block is 20″ square, and with the outer borders, that should come to roughly 65″ square. I may change my mind, but this looks good from here.

Step 2: March 13, 2016–Cut out the quilt: the tan backgrounds of the squares, the border triangles, the smaller half-square triangles, strips for the wonky stars, but save the piano key border for later.

Step 3: April 13, 2016–Assemble four blocks and add large appliques; use Thelma’s method (of Cupcakes and Daisies) for adding the curlicue stem. Make and add half-square triangeles (HSTs) around these blocks, using the 8-at-a-time method of HSTs.

Step 4: May 13, 2016–Cut and make the wonky star blocks from templates and strips. I’m doing five blocks, so will need to make twenty wonky stars and true them up. Add on the large outside triangles.

Step 5: June 13, 2016–Assemble the rest of the star blocks, by adding their HST borders. In the pattern, they are mixed up and varied, but also harmonized (some have a mix of orange and black, some have just black, some have just orange.) Make your own rules and go with it.

AND NOW! WE ARE AT Step 6: July 13, 2016–Arrange the blocks on your design wall and stitch together. Cut the pieces for your borders. Make the four corner pinwheels. Sew borders together and attach them to the quilt. Ta-Done!!

AND THERE IS AN UPDATE AT THE END OF THIS POST, added December 2016

We finished up here last time, with the center of the quilt put together, the blocks placed and sewn together (and yes, I fixed the lower sawtooth edge on the right). Leisa and I are making a 9-block quilt; the pattern calls for 12 blocks.

Make more HST blocks: there are four blocks per pinwheel, so this time I didn’t use the eight-at-a-time method, but instead, followed the pattern’s recipe for two-at-a-time (check there for dimensions).

Trim each HST to 3″ using your favorite method, then stitch four together to make a pinwheel.

Press, as shown, with all seams to the dark, popping a few stitches in the middle to allow the seam allowances to make their own tiny pinwheel. Halloween6_1

True the corner pinwheel square to 5 1/2.”

You’ll be making four corner pinwheels.

Cut your pieces for your borders, following the pattern directions. For the smaller nine-block quilt, adjust down to 24 total per side. I tried to randomize the sewing of the oranges in between the black pieces, as I had many more different types of orange. Just do your best.

Press the seams going one way. You’ll notice that you begin with a black and end with an orange piece (or visa versa). I chose to press my seams toward the orange, from the black, doing the same on all four border strips.

Matching all the seams, pin and stitch on the borders: I sewed on the top border and the bottom border and pressed the seam away from the quilt top (towards the border). Then I sewed the sides on, but I left one inch free on the beginning of that seam and on the end of that seam, which would allow me to stitch on the pinwheel blocks later. You can kind of see where it’s not sewn down, above.

Now, audition your pinwheels–you’ll like them going one way or the other, or swap them out to get the look that pleases you. But please don’t overthink this step. When you get them how you like them, stitch them on the side borders at both ends. Press. Then finish stitching the side seams.

Halloween6_5 Now press those seams away from the quilt top, towards the border. You are done!

I went outside in the sunset and took pictures of the completed quilt top.

I know when you were deep in wonky stars and then deeper in making millions of half-square triangles, you wanted to quit; however, this last part is easy-peasy, so you should come roaring into the finish line.

All Hallows Eve
Quilt #174
68″ square

Update (December 2016): I finished the quilt, taking it over to my quilter. She got it back to me by the end of November and by December, the binding and sleeve were on.

Here’s the back!
(Now back to the original post)

Congratulations on finishing your Halloween Quilt, and so early! Thanks for following along our QAL. Hope you enjoy your quilt this Halloween!

When you finish, send me a photo (or two) and I’ll put them up on the blog. Happy Haunting, everyone!

Giveaway · Oh Christmas Tree QAL · Quilt-A-Long · Quilts

Oh Christmas Tree QAL • STEP 3

April 2, 2016April 4, 2016 Elizabeth E.24 Comments

Here we are again, gathering together for the next step of the Oh Christmas Tree Quilt-A-Long (#ohchristmastreeqal), using the pattern found in Quiltmania’s Simply Moderne, issue #3, designed by Wendy Williams of Flying Fish Kits.

At this point, you’ve been working on your flowers for a month, and if you are like me, that first one was like jumping off a high dive, and thinking the pool was empty and you’d go splat. But you didn’t, and your flower circles are looking wonderful and you are actually having a great time. Keep working on them, you’ll need 21 of them in the various sizes shown on the pattern. I have to admit that all of mine are not the “perfect” size, as some are larger than what is called for. I mocked up the tree the other day (I’ll show you this at the end) and it was okay. So no fretting. Just #startyourneedles and keep creating and stitching.

But. . . this month we’re adding two easy tasks: leaves and birds. First up, birds.

Remember all that tracing you did of the birds, and how you labeled them and marked the dashed overlap lines on a folded piece of freezer paper, so you’d be making two copies of the bird (one regular, and one reversed) and you stapled it together to keep the pieces from shifting? Now’s the time to get them out. Hold them up to the light and transfer the dashed overlap marking on the wing to the wing piece on the other side, then cut them out and start picking your colors.

Be bold! Red beaks! purple bodies! wild wings! I ironed down the freezer paper patterns, using a wool setting (NOT your regular cotton setting–or you’ll scorch the wool), and then cut them out. I tucked the beaks under the body, guesstimating where they’d go (hint: NOT even with the top of the body) and pinned them. Then I place the wing on the bird, using the dashed overlap line to place them, then pinned that in place.

(No worries…I fixed that purple bird’s wing before I pinned it down!)

Wendy of Wendy’s Quilts and More gave me a tip to sew on the beak first. I just used a few overcast stitches to get it on securely. I’d never qualify for a bird plastic surgeon, that’s for sure. Then attach the wing by blanket stitches (or overcast stitches, or a back stitch or a running stitch), beginning where it attaches to the body and work your way around the lower edge and back up again.

Now do the floaty part of the wing, and tie it off.

Add a few French knots, or seed stitches, or whatever small decorative stitch. Cut a teensy circle of white, then an even teensier circle of black and secure them both with a French knot, done with white thread. I started by cutting 1/2″ squares of white felt, then rounded them off, and then cut smaller squares of black and just kept going around and around, cutting, until it was the right size. Be prepared to sacrifice a couple of eyeballs until you get the hang of it.

Ta-DONE!

I got fancy with that red bird, attaching the wing with running stitches, and doing a zig-zag stitch across the wing.

I took them with me on my trip to Portugal and Spain (pictures of that trip are on my Instagram, to the right and on a previous post) and was able to get them sewn without too much trouble on the [long] flight out there. These go MUCH more quickly than do the flowers, so I’m also adding LEAVES to this month’s tasks.

Okay, that wasn’t hard! I traced half of all the leaves I’d need onto freezer paper, doubled it over to get two layers, then cut them out. Iron on to your felt using a wool setting, and cut out. Repeat for the inner, smaller, leaves. I cut a few out of a different green just to give some variety. Place the smaller leaves as shown, setting them closer to one end. Using a backstitch, sew them down. It’s tricky near the tip, but you can see how wobbly mine are and how it really doesn’t matter. (Last time I checked, The Creator didn’t use a ruler to create his leaves either, and our world is the more beautiful for that variation.)

So I was curious as to how I was doing at this point, so I smoothed my tree up on the design wall, and stabbed pins through all the flowers and the four birds I’d finished. Then, ACK! I was stuck. What number flowers were where? What had I sewn and cut and what was I lacking? I got out all the baggies of labeled flowers and set up a little station on my ironing board, right below the tree. I wrote out post-it notes labeling the flowers as in the pattern, and then a master list of where they were supposed to go. I then lined up the circles from the pattern, drawn out on freezer paper below each sticky note, so I could see the relative sizes.

Now that I was organized, I could figure it out. I had enough of certain flowers and needed more of others. Some of the directions in the pattern were wrong, so I corrected for those:

If you want it to look like the one in the magazine, Flowers 6: should read “floating above branch 2” and Flowers 7: should read “on branch 3.” I say, just squinch them all in where they’ll look good. This is just a test run, but later we’ll do it for real.

After a while, I could pin up what I’d cut out, fabric medallions, layered felts and all, and was pretty pleased with how it was coming along! I’d encourage you to do this interim step, if only to give yourself a little pat on the back that you’ve come this far. After taking the photo, I put everything away in the proper baggies, and planned to keep stitching flowers and finish up the birds.

At the last minute, I decided to take a bunch of the flowers with me on our trip, squeezing them into a cute bag made by Sherri of A Quilting Life. I snapped a photo of my stitching on the airplane tray table. I kept stitching until I had nearly all of the flowers done:

And after getting home, I did another mockup. I didn’t pay too much attention as to what number flower should go where, but instead put my largest one on top, then the next two largest on the lowest limbs, moving on up the tree and thinking more about size and color placement. I’ll let this stay up on the design wall for a few days while I move things around. I did have one dud–a flower I ended up not liking, but that’s pretty good, I think. I only had three flowers left to finish, which I did yesterday, so I’m ready to move on to the next phase.

A recap of where we are:

~~January, Step “prepare”: buy the magazine, books, gather your fabrics, buy the felt/wool, buy/find the pearl cotton.~~

~~February, Step 1: Make the tree on the background and stitch it down.~~

~~March, Step 2: Make 21 flowers.~~Keep stitching, keep stitching!

~~April, Step 3: Make 10 birds and the leaves.~~ Keep stitching, keep stitching!

May, Step 4: Scene at bottom of tree.

June, Step 5: Appliqué down the flowers. (Wendy gave me some tips for this last week, which I’ll pass along.)

July, Step 6: Appliqué down the birds and the scene.

August, Step 7: Sawtooth border (reds); sew together and attach.

September, Step 8 (finish up Quilt-A-Long): Make wonky star blocks, sew them together and attach border #2.

See you May 2nd for the next step: scene at the bottom of the tree. Wendy’s done one scene, the pattern shows one, and I’m cooking up another. See below for the giveaway.

#startyourneedles for the #ohchristmastreeqal

Initially I wasn’t going to do a giveaway, but after visiting with Anna in Barcelona, I thought it would be fun to have a Spanish connection from our trip. In Barcelona, I purchased five balls of size 8 pearl cotton (my favorite size) and will send that to the lucky person who is chosen from comments left below. I’m also including a 1 yard piece of metallic purple embroidery floss that I purchased in Lisbon. Even though it is a little like sewing with tensile steel, it makes fun accents on our flowers (I used mine for some back stitching here and there, and also for some French knots on another flower).

Please leave a comment below, telling me either where you’d like to go a a trip outside the US and why, or the place where you had your favorite trip (outside the US) and why. I love to read about other people’s trips, or their hoped-for travels! I’ll let this run for a few days, then will close it off and chose a winner.

UPDATE: Comments are closed now. Thanks for writing!