Circles Block #6, EPP Sew-A-Long

November 3, 2014March 2, 2021 Elizabeth E.19 Comments

Circle #6: Star of Wonder
(but stay tuned. . . another variation of Circle #6 is coming in a couple of days)

Welcome to my series of English-Paper Pieced Circles! I decided some time ago that I needed a new hand-work project for those night when you just want to sit around and stitch and watch TV or a movie. I liked circles, and hadn’t found any EPP versions, so decided to create my own. All my patterns are hand drawn, but they are free. I do test-make them to get rid of any quirks before I present them to you. I’ve already done five circles and this post gives you the sixth. Here they all are together:

This sixth circle, based on a six-pointed star, is all English Paper-Pieced, except that I do appliqué the larger circle onto the background square, as the results are better that way. And since this center circle does not need go over a series of joining seams, it can be paper-pieced right into the circle. I can’t remember where my inspiration for this one came from, but I do like that secondary star pattern that forms in-between the golden star points. The center of this star is suited to a medallion-type piece of fabric, so drag out those large prints and see which one works.

As usual, these blocks start with a hand-drawn circle, and then I trace off the patterns. And then I realize that it would be better if I had one more of THAT star point and one less of THIS arc.

RWB Shine_Block Six

The free patterns are now returning (Red, White & Blue version is above). 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 6 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 time I didn’t staple the wad of three sheets together, as I used to in the past, but instead cut more carefully around each piece. Tedious, but they go together better at the end, I think.

I’ve pinned the pieces on, cut around them, then I lay them out to check for color/pattern. I liked it so I moved forward.

I did this circle in three different states at five different houses and a hospital room. EPP travels very well. Here I have stitched the ring pieces together, sometimes attaching them to the circle as I go. Now I’m starting to attach the star points. I think it looks like a clown hat at this juncture.

I try all the points on, lining up with the seams in the blue-and-green polka-dotted ring. I stitched them on, one by one and set it aside.

Next is stitching the inner sections together. First join the upper small star point (red) to the lower wedge (white). Then attach one (blue) arc to the side, then the other. The first time I tried this I got all confused, but remember to lay the longer flat side of the arc along the small star point and you should be fine.

Trying this out.

I took this photo to show how I attach those inner wedges: first one side, a stitch at the point, then the other side. I also take a stitch at the top of the blue arcs, holding one to the next.

Ta-DONE!

I lay the circle on my 14 1/2″ square of background fabric. I’m visiting a brother-in-law in the hospital at this point and am doing this on his bedside table while he is sleeping, so instead of being able to iron four neat creases into the background fabric to help guide me for placement (as before), I finger-pressed in what I could and eyeballed the rest. As you’ve noticed, there is a bit of extra fabric all around the circle, so I’ll be able to correct any missteps later. It was at this point I realized that my center medallion was not centered on its axis. It was kind of keeling on its side, pointing a bit to the Northwest. AAAGH. I still appliquéd the circle down and checked my suspicion with my husband when I got home from traveling. Yep. It’s a re-do.

The circle without its center. I just snipped loose the stitching (it’s amazing how easy it was) and centered it again. This time I loosely (about a stitch per seam) basted in the center and checked it often as I did the regular EPP stitch. I did this step as we drove to see our grandson at his eighth birthday. Circles on the move, I say.

So here it is. . . all done, and ready to go into the quilt. I made this circle up in a different coloration and will show it to you at the next post.

But here are the first six, arranged digitally. I hope you have been able to keep up with our progress, but these patterns will be here for a while if you haven’t.

Now come back for the next post, where I show a completely different look to this circle.

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Also linking up to Live A Colorful Life’s Choose Your Own Block-Along.

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SHINE: Circles Block 4, EPP

September 1, 2014March 2, 2021 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Circle #4: Pravoslavni Park

Here is the fourth circle in our EPP Sew-A-Long, another circle taken from Ljubljana, Slovenia in an ornately painted church. I chose not to make the outer arcs in a different color in order to let the star points pop out of this eight-point star. (If I were doing this one again, I’d make the arcs in a different color. I just like the look of that circle shape.)

Here they are all together, all different, but they play nicely together, I think. I was asked about color selection for my blocks. I have to admit I just have chosen my favorite fabrics from my stash. I do keep in mind that they need to coordinate, but I also know that the repetition of this circular shape would also tie the blocks together.

RWB Shine_Block Four

The free patterns are now returning (Red, White & Blue version is above). 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 4 pattern_opquilt

As before, print out enough copies so you can make your eight-pointed star, then staple them all together heavily so you can cut them out without them shifting.

Again, if the pieces have no direction (are the same shape if folded along an axis line), lay them with the printing either up or down. If they are specific, like the point-pieces, lay them out on your fabric with the printed side facing the wrong side of the fabric, and then cut them out. Sometimes if I whack off too big of a seam allowance, I’ll trim it later as I’m basting around it. It’s all very forgiving, so don’t stress. There are more tips and instructions on Circles #3, Ljubljana.

The inspiration for this block came from a combination of the two above blocks. I wanted fewer points than are shown in the church paintings but I did like the division or the “layers” of points. Again, these circles are high above floor level, so they are a bit hard to capture in a photograph.

Here’s some “making” shots:

All three sections joined together, the left side and the right side done separately.

I put pins in the joining seams to keep them aligned as I sew.

I located the tip of the paper inside my basted piece and started sewing them together from the bottom, matching that teensy end first.

This is when I had one done. I laid out all the pieces to see if I liked it. I didn’t.

I had started in the usual way,with the fabrics like this, trying to lay them out as I think they will work in the design.

It looked okay as laid out, but after I finished one, I didn’t like it at all. I brought out more fabrics.

I liked this better, but I kept trying. As usual, I try not to obsess too much about perfection in design and color and pattern and all those other things we quilters worry about. Scrap quilts can sometimes boggle our minds as they don’t fit together as easily as those ones we make from one line of fabric, that line of fabrics perfectly keyed to work together. These kinds of quilts can stretch us as quilters, as well as teach us patience and confidence. But it’s good practice to make up one point of your star to see if you like it, knowing that with a few snips, you can change it out. I kept doing this until I was happy with my choices, and again, made one more star point to check.

I liked it a lot better. Carry on!

This is the photo I took this morning before I starched and ironed it, and you can see how it looks, all soft from the handwork.

Back.

I used the same technique I used in Circles #3, of appliquéing the large pointed circle onto a 14.5″ square of background. Then I appliqué that smaller center circle on, cut out the underneath, snipping away the yellow points. Before I’d done that, it was a bit lumpy there, but it all flattened out once I cut away the points.

I love that color of blue against that tangeriney orange in the second division.

A couple of quilters have written to me, showing me their circle projects. Here are a couple:

Missie Carpenter of Traditional Primitives

Dittany Matthews of Blue Moth

And I found this post from Quilt Inspiration about another quilter’s journey in circles.

I’ll post the next circles block sometime around the first part of November. Have fun sewing!

Quilts

Deep Summer

July 21, 2014 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

In deep summer, everything moves a little slower because of the heat. The sewing slows down because we’re at the beach, or watching Endeavor on the television, or just lazily talking after dinner on the patio. The dusk deepens, and we realize we’ve talked the evening away as we flip on the overhead twinkle lights and talk some more, maybe eating an ice cream bar. Or something else cold and slippery and refreshing like a tall lemonade.

So I sip some lemonade while fighting the urge to take the scissors and whack off this veritable mountain of seams on the backside of Circles Block #2, which I’m currently working on. I’ve made this section twice, and have now realized we need a Design Change. It will work fine, but in Deep Summer, it’s best not to be thinking too hard.

I finished the block this morning (this is the backside–full reveal the first week of August), went to add the background corners and realized I’d drawn the whole shebang one inch too large all the way around. I slumped into my chair–it’s really too hot to do anything else, right? Then after slumping for a while, I got up and redrew parts of it to make it conform to what we have going on so far in Circles Block #1 and #2. I’m NOT remaking that center section, though, having already sewn it twice. It will all be correct when I finally post it, and tested.

We had our annual Good Heart Quilters Retreat at Lisa’s house, and were joined by her two sisters-in-law, who traveled down from the Mountain West to join us. This is just the first batch of quilters in the moring–more came and by evening, when the fudgy brownies came out of the oven, there were many more.

Jean was a phenom, getting several quilt tops to the finished stage so she can quilt them on her machine. Others quilters were just as industrious, but I was head-down-fingers-stitching on the Circles Block and forgot to take photos.

I also finished my Four-in-Art quilt, but that reveal is not until August 1st, so check back then. I really like this one and tried a new technique of printing on fabric. I’ll share the quilt and all the “deconstruction” details next week.

And in Deep Summer maybe something we ought to do is read a poem or two, while sitting outside under the twinkle lights on the patio downing the last of the frozen peanut butter cookies — a poem like this one, by Susan Hutton, found *here.*

Falling Through

My neighbor, perched high on a ladder
one weekend afternoon,
trimmed the wrong branch and sent himself
slowly wheeling through the sky.
He curved through the air as smoothly
as if he’d been drawn with a compass,
a graceful inflection discordantly accompanied
by crepitating branches and breathy leaves,
and landed in a lush, bent sapling.
To call it beautiful misses the point.
To say he stood and walked away unharmed
is true. For fifteen years I’ve remembered that shape,
its pace, but it’s the moment when he understood
it would happen that I return to: that fear,
and whether he resisted it or surrendered.
How often it happens that we step, half-consideringly
into the impersonal forces at work,
unable to pull ourselves back.
The tread of the stair beneath our feet
the appalling speed of our own blood.
The fifty years of our working lives limit our thoughts
as the pyramids’ size was ultimately determined
by what they could build within the pharaoh’s life.
The arctic whale moves through the water
with a century-old, ivory spearhead buried in its flesh.
My son was born early, before his body had developed
the reflex to suck. He spent his first two weeks alive
covered in wires and tubes amid loud, beeping machines.
I did not know him yet, in the lasting way,
but I saw he had my grandfather’s face.
And oh I was afraid. And we moved through it.
SUSAN HUTTON
Michigan Quarterly Review
Spring 2014

Quilts

Some Interesting Circle Quilts

July 1, 2014June 9, 2014 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

While looking through this blog, I found some examples of interesting circle quilts. This one, made by Kathleen H. McCrady and titled Sawtooth X, is patterned after an old one from 1875, using reproduction fabrics in brighter colorways.

This is kind of “circle-y,” but has added oak leaf appliqués in the corners.

(from *here*)

Known as the Georgetown Circle Quilt, its maker is unknown, but it was made in the era between 1900-1920.

(from *here*)

Here’s a modern variation of that Georgetown Circles quilt.

I found this one on my computer, with a date of 2005. It’s from Freddy Moran and I believe she calls it Airship Propeller. But I could be wrong about that title. Jenn Kingwell did a similar design, but turned her blocks on point:

(from *here*)

Lastly, when I lived in Washington DC, the Smithsonian Institution’s American History Museum had this sort of secret quilt tour, but if you knew about it, you’d call them up and a docent would take you in the back and open lots of archival drawers, showing you positively ancient quilts (some 250+ years old). It was amazing. In one drawer was this quilt with circles. This one looks challenging to piece, but I think easier if is English Paper Pieced. I’ll save this one for later in the series, once we’ve gotten our skill set up and going.

All this proves that our slow sewing, of making English paper pieced circle blocks is an idea that has come around again.