Quilts

Circles Block #13–EPP Sew-A-Long

June 30, 2015July 18, 2022 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Tiny Swirly Gig
Circles Block #13 of the Circles EPP Sew-A-Long

Since I so rationally decided that I needed SIXTEEN blocks to make up my quilt, all I can chalk it up to is summer heat (coupled with our drought, we are going to have so.much.fun), regular old garden variety stress (having cloth in your fingers lowers blood pressure so I heard), or a blissful existence of sitting on sofas eating bonbons while watching videos and stitching. Choose one.

But here I am again on the Final Four of the Circles Blocks, created because I wanted something more than straight lines to English Paper Piece.

Block 13 is found in my shop, together with all its friends of Blocks 13-19.

As usual, I assume you know how to do some EPP, but do like to give tips and more instructions here on the blog. For starters, I print out my papers on 24-lb. weight copy paper, a bit heavier than the usual stuff, and make sure my printer scaling is at 100%. Print off four copies of the pattern, and cut them out around all the lines. You only need one circle, though.

I also print off a color picture of the block (this one made in EQ7) and keep it in my little baggie full of pieces. It helps when my brain fades, or too much is going on around me, or I’m trying to remember what the heck all those little pieces are for.

Fabric selection is usually based on what falls out first of my stack, as I glance over at all my blocks up on my pin wall and try to find fabrics that I’ve used before, so the quilt will blend.

The other day I put a photo up on IG and someone asked me what my fabrics were. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, while I am totally impressed that a designer can make up a line of 14 fabrics that all go together, and I love love love them, doesn’t mean I’m going to use them all in a quilt at the same time (although I have done it once. Or twice.) And I’m a selvage cutter-offer, so the chances of me knowing what they are might probably be very slim. I’ll probably know the designer, but the name of the fabric? I have a thing for using a LOT of different fabrics in a quilt. I mean, it’s a great big fabric universe out there. Why not have fun?

The other tip to picking good fabrics is to know your color wheel–how it works, as well as your value scale (light-to-dark). (Illustration above from *here* which has a quick primer on color and value.) More quilts have been ruined by the inclusion of medium-value fabrics only, especially by the use of medium gray (ACK! ACK!). Try to get a range of hues (colors) in light (tints) to dark (shades).

Which direction do you want your swirls to go? If you want it to look like the pattern, place the printing face down on the wrong side of the pattern. Whichever way you do it, be consistent on both colors of swirls. I pin the pieces, slice around them with my rotary cutter (no, I am not exact), then use the glue method of getting the fabrics on the papers. (Your pattern pieces will look different than what is in the photo above, as I have revised and improved the pattern multiple times.)

Ta Da! All glued down. I don’t glue down that inner bit as it will be covered by the center circle.

I like to lay out all the pieces to see how they play together. I like this bunch. Often this is where I’ll switch out fabrics, trying to catch it before I get everything sewed together and then hate it. If the choices will fight with each other, let it be at this stage.

Sew a light swirl to a dark swirl, being consistent as to which color is on the left or the right.

Sew the sets of two into sets of four.

Add the points to the sets of four, attaching the rounded edge of the pointy piece to the swirls.

Stitch the background points in between those. I make sure that the “extra” background point always ends up on the same side, in this case, the right.

Don’t they look great?

Now join two sets of four to make a set of eight. Beauty shot. I stitch at night while watching movies with my husband and this dark leather foot rest makes a good backdrop.

Now join the last two seams. Yes, it’s okay to switch thread colors if you want to along one seam. In this case I used yellow on the swirls and white on the points.

Another beauty shot.

And another, from the back.

Cut a 14 1/2″ square of background fabric, fold in fourths and lightly iron in the creases so they will serve as registration marks for aligning your circle. Remove all but the outer-edge papers. If you see some wild seam allowances, trim them now (you’ll do it again at the end). While this is what you will cut for a background, in the Finishing Pattern, the block may be smaller when trimmed.

You know the point-up or point-down drill by now. (If you don’t know what I mean, I have lots of tips and tricks in the other twelve circle patterns. Click on the SHINE tab, above, to see the other circles.) Take time to try yours out on your background. Obviously I went with point up. Now I am not liking the center circle I had planned.

I have a bag of Rejected Center Circles, and I’m trying more out now.

But in the end, I went with this one, because often you just need a dark center to anchor the circle. Appliqué the large circle to the background, then cut out the back, as shown in earlier circle posts (again, you can access them all by the tab up above). Remove all the papers. Now is the time to trim any wild seam allowances.

Now appliqué on your middle circle, using tiny stitches. When finished, press face down on a well-padded ironing board (or a folded towel, if your board isn’t padded). Now you have another circle!

The circle patterns for numbers 13-16, plus new blocks 18-22 are available in my pattern shop.

Also available is the pattern for finishing SHINE: The Circles Quilt.

Happy Making!

updated July 18, 2022

Circles Block #12–EPP Sew-A-Long

June 1, 2015March 10, 2021 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

Nine-pointed Compass Rose Block

This is the twelfth block in a series of Circles Blocks. Why circles? Mainly because I had done some English Paper-Pieced projects and I was sick of straight lines. And hexies, although I quite enjoy them both. The other eleven blocks are available above, under the tab Shine: The Circles Quilt EPP.

Sometimes the inspiration in this series has come from other sources, but this one came out of my head. And a creative mistake I made when designing another circle, yielding a circle has NINE points, whereas most any other circle you find in the world is divided up into an even number of points. I liked it and went with it.

shine-rwb-block_12

The free patterns are now returning (Red, White & Blue version is above). Again, I request that you not distribute them, but send people here to this website to get them. Click to download a PDF file:

SHINE Block 12 pattern_opquilt

Please remember to set your printer settings to 100% and check the little scale square included on the pattern. It should measure 1″ in size. Illustrations below are with the OLD version of the pattern, so it may vary from what’s included now.

This is an easy block to sew, I think.

Fabric auditioning. This one was pretty straight forward, without any substitutions along the line.

I cut out all the pieces, glue-basted them on (see earlier Circles Blocks for tip and tricks for this series).

I like to print out a picture of my circle, gather the threads I’ll use, and collect everything into a ziploc baggie for easy toting.

When hand sewing the curves, it’s okay to let the pieces curve in your hand.

Step one: Sew the smaller “sky” piece (light blue) to the larger “sky” piece (dark blue).

Step two: Stitch the points and wedges together in groups of two (and one three) each, as shown above.

Step Three: Sew the bright orange triangle points to the smaller green triangle points, in groups of two or three.

Step Four: Attach these to a corresponding yellow triangle/sky combo.

Step Five: Start stitching the units together, however, not like I did above. Keep track of where the orange/yellow units go, so they all mesh together. It might be helpful if you lay out half of the circle when you start putting the units together, just to keep track.

Remember: I make the mistakes so you don’t have to. (Although you can make new ones if you want.)

Since EPPing center circles and I don’t get along, I appliqué them all now. Fluff out the seam allowances on the green so you can appliqué on the large center circle. (I should have thought this one ahead. Okay. A new mistake.)

Remove all the papers except those at the outer edge in the dark blue (you’ll need them in the next part when you put the circle onto its background).

This time, I pinned on the center circle first, then auditioned it on the background, a square cut to 14 1/2.” Yes, this will give you a little extra room around the edges, handy for when you decide to finish this thing. Fold the background in fourths, iron a bit of a crease, then align the circle with those creases. Usually this is easy, but since this is a nine-point star, you may want to measure in from each edge to get it evenly spaced on your background..

Do you want point up on the upper edge (above), or. . . valley up (below)?

Yeah, okay. You know I already went point up.

Stitch down the circle to the background, folding in the point areas as you come to them to make a smooth line. Trim away the background, one-fourth inch away from the appliqué stitching line.

Then appliqué on that center circle. I also like to trim away fly-away seam allowances, especially on those points, getting rid of unnecessary bulk.

Press lightly (face down on a padded ironing board is probably the best–use a light hand as they are hand-stitched and you don’t want to iron them into oblivion. Any puckering that you see will be gone after quilting this thing, so no fretting unless you have pleats. . .

Here’s the drawing of the block in case you want to print it out for a guide.

Twelve Circle Blocks Shine.jpg Here are all twelve circles. You can either finish your quilt now, or keep going.

Shine Nine Extra Blocks

I have designed nine more blocks for SHINE, so you can pick and choose, and some of them are different than what is shown in my quilt. They are available from my PayHip, my pattern site.

*Full Shine Quilt titled_final I also have a Finishing Pattern, which includes details on how to sew the inner and outer sashing, plus one bonus block. This has also been newly re-designed, but if you purchased it before, you should be able to just download a new version.

I hope you have enjoyed this series of circles as much as I’ve enjoyed creating and sewing them. Please drop me a note as you make yours, sharing a photo or two.

Karen tagged me the other day on Instagram, and I about flipped over with happiness that someone had found these useful. I love her colors and combos–so fun to see!

And here’s another from Mary who blogs at Needled Mom. I love her colors, too–the pop of that lime in the red star points is terrific against the blues.

There are also Christmas block versions, made by my friend Linda. You can see them in this post.

Happy Quilting!!

EPP · Quilts · Shine: The Circles Quilt

Circles Block #11–EPP Sew-A-Long

April 29, 2015March 10, 2021 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

Circle #11: Vintage Test Pattern

This is the eleventh block in a series of twelve circle blocks, conceived and created when I needed another hand-sewing project, and wanted something beyond hexagons. I had several sources of inspiration for this one:

As a child, I remember these “television test patterns” on the tube when I’d get up too early, before the station had signed on. And I liked the Greek Cross reference, too, since many of these circles were designs taken from a Greek Orthodox Church in Ljubljana, Slovenia (from our vacation last year). So I give credit to both sources of inspiration.

The free patterns are now returning (I did not do Red, White & Blue version of this block). Again, I request that you not distribute them, but send people here to this website to get them. Click to download a PDF file:

SHINE Block 11 pattern_opquilt

Here’s the circle drawn up in my quilt software. I’ve taken to printing out this little color drawing and putting it in a small bag with all the glued-up pieces. I like referring to the drawing as I work.

Picking fabrics–I always lay them out. I jumped the gun and cut the cross-bars early, as I have another circle with that fabric and while I wanted these circles to be different from one another, I still wanted them to be able to have a conversation, so I repeat fabrics here and there. When you cut out your center circle piece, cut it about 1/4″ bigger than it is. See Circles #10 for some tips on the center circles.

Once I got all the little points around the top of the circle printed out, I noticed that it would be hard to figure out where the “curve” of the triangle was, so I drew little arrows on every one of them. As it turned out, I was okay about figuring out how they went, but if you think you might need the extra assist, do it now.

Kind of looks like a tomato with leaves.

As is my habit, I lay out all the glued pieces for one final check before I start sewing them together.

Then I loaded them all up in my little bag with the drawing and went outside to the patio to stitch, while listening to my audio book.

This time it was The Last Chinese Chef, and I was craving Chinese food by the time I finished listening to this. But not Americanized Chinese food; I wanted the food in the book.

Stitch the upper row sections together, then the lower, then join them, keeping those seams aligned if at all possible. Notice that I have not glued down the lower edges of the lower section to their papers (the innermost part of the circle), as I want to appliqué the center circle onto the piece, and it’s a lot harder if I’ve folded the edges and glued them down.

Then, line up four green triangles with their curved edges at the bottom, and the points that go in-between them (three pieces). Lastly, lay the half-triangle on each side. NOW sew them together. You don’t want to be sewing on a full-triangle on those outer edges; ask me how I know.

When sewn together, it should look like this. It’s now after dinner and I’m inside, still listening, but sewing by lamplight, instead of by sunlight. I couldn’t stop listening to that book, nor stop sewing. These get addicting.

Join a checkerboard unit to the triangles unit.

Then stitch one of those ray-sections to the checkboard units, making sure you are attaching it to the same side on all four units. In this photo you can clearly see the raw fabric edges of the lower checkerboard pieces. Sew together two of these units, then sew those two units together to create a full circle. At this point, you can remove all the papers, except any that are at that outer edge. If the papers are hard to slip out because they are glued, use the tip of your small scissors or a stiletto to loosen the fabric (so you won’t have to tug and pull).

Cut a 14 1/2″ square of backing fabric. Yes, it is bigger than the circle, but I want to make sure I have enough to work with when I figure out how I’m setting all these together. (I have no clue at this point!) Now it’s decision time. This version, with the red rays arranged North-South-East-West, or. . .

. . . this version, with the rays arranged like a flower? I marked the centers of my large backing square, and set down the circle, pinning it for appliqué. I went with the traditional version (North-South-East-West).

Cut away the backing fabric, leaving a 1/4″ seam allowance. I love these little Karen Kay Buckley scissors, as the tips have little teeth that grip the fabric, holding it while trimming even the smallest bit of fabric.

Pin on, then appliqué the center circle. See Block #10 for some appliqué tips. I should have placed that “weave” pattern aligned straight up and down, but instead I just slapped it on. As a result, I always want to tip my head to the side when looking at the center circle. I’m sure no one else will notice (well, now you will) so I’m not redoing it. Keeps it real, keeps it interesting.

Remove all the papers, and admire your work.

Here are they all are, lined up on an ironing board that is obviously used for other things than ironing. (Anyone else have to clear off their ironing board in order to iron something?) I think they do play well together! I’m posting this circle block a wee bit early as we have our Quarterly Four-in-Art Reveal in two days, on May 1st.

I hope you’ll join me then for our little gallery of art quilts!

EPP · Shine: The Circles Quilt

Circles Block #10–EPP Sew-A-Long

March 31, 2015March 10, 2021 Elizabeth E.11 Comments

Dresden Plate, Rainbow Style — Circles Block #10

Here we are again, with block ten of the dozen or so blocks I have planned for this series, and I have to say it’s one of my favorites.

In fact I liked it so well, I taped it to my kitchen cupboard, where I can enjoy it. My husband says it looks like a winking smiley face. I just see a rainbow.

The free patterns are now returning (I did not do a Red, White & Blue version). Again, I request that you not distribute them, but send people here to this website to get them. Click to download a PDF file:

SHINE Block 10 pattern_opquilt

Here’s the blade papers pinned to fabrics and cut out. I used pins initially as I was checking for a smooth gradation of colors for my rainbow. Yes, I realized later I’d done the rainbow the reverse of what is normally shown.

After I liked the arrangement, I used a glue stick and glued them to the papers. I talk about gluing vs. basting in an earlier circle post, so read back through those to learn about that technique.

The one new thing for this circle is confessing my undying love for Karen Kay Buckley’s Perfect Circle templates.

I have them in two sizes: smaller, and bigger. It’s what I use for my circles, instead of cutting out the paper pattern. I have learned to punch 2-3 holes in the biggest circles when I take them to my ironing board, in order to let the steam escape.

I choose a circle a little bit bigger than the paper pattern, then lay it down on the wrong side of the fabric, and trace around it. I then cut about 1/2″ away from the line. I did talk about the construction of them *here;* just scroll down to where you see me taking a gathering stitch and pulling it up around the circle, then read on.

To construct this block, line up the “shoulders” of the upper edges, as shown. Take a stitch, then loop through it to make it more secure, as shown in the next photo, pulling it snug.

Then keep going, taking tiny “bites” of fabric of each blade, whip-stitching them together. It goes really quickly.

I did mine in sections, depending on which thread matched, then sewed the sections together.

Cut a 14 1/2″ square for the background, and crease in the centers on all four sides; if you are not near an iron, just finger-press it. Now it’s Decision Time: Point up, or valley up? I went with the valley between the two points, but my friend Lisa, who was sitting beside me at quilt guild, preferred the point up. I tell you this story to say that there is no right or wrong–just what you like. Applique this to the background using a neutral thread. There’s a trick to good appliqué, and that’s to not have the thread come all the way to the top of what you are appliquéing, but instead kind of split the fold. Then don’t pull the thread too tightly. You want it to float on your background, not be nailed to it. I have a photo below, when I appliqué the center, showing what I mean about “splitting the fold.” (At least I hope it does.)

After you appliqué the rainbow Dresden Plate onto the back, trim away the underneath, about 1/4″ away from your stitches.

Using either a pair of small, sharp scissors or the business end of a stiletto, loosen the glued edges, and pop out the papers.

Like this.

Arrange your circle on your Dresden, pin. Now appliqué on. I need to start making my circles a wee bit bigger, because it was a close call on some parts, so I sewed with teensy little stitches in a neutral thread (here: a grey-green). See how the needle is kind of splitting the fold on that left-hand part of the photo? You want to try to get a good bite of fabric, but not so the needle comes out on the top. You want it at the “side” of the piece, if you can think about it that way, like if you were looking at a really flat layer cake–you’d want the needle to come out about where the filling is, not on top where the decorations are. Don’t pull the thread too tightly. . . just snugly.

Whew. Some of those seam allowances are barely a quarter-inch, but my stitches are tiny and the center will hold. (Quick! which poem is that from?***)

Here’s your completed block. Why a Dresden block? Doesn’t every circle quilt need one? I’d been making them for my bee groups. We used *this tutorial* and sewed them on the sewing machine (although I used my version of the centers, and machine appliquéd them on), but truthfully, sewing them by hand didn’t take that much longer.

First, Rene’ had us make one in blues and greens.

And then Cindy had us make one in bright colors, so how I could I resist?

And then there were ten!

˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚

*** The poem is from Yeats, and he actually said the “centre cannot hold,” but your lovely hand-stitched center will. Here’s the first part of his poem, and although I analyzed it to death when teaching it to my students, I still barely get the whole meaning, but it does have to do with the horrors of our twentieth century. It’s pretty scary out there. Too bad Yeats didn’t do English Paper Piecing. He might have felt better about things.

THE SECOND COMING, by William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. . . . .