My project for Sew Day was starting the border of the La Passacaglia top. The reason was twofold. Now that the Half Hexie Star is well in hand, I really need a hand project to work on in the evenings.
I started out thinking I would, finally, cut out the Retreat In A Bag Organizer and the Ultimate Project Bag from the Crafty Gemini Organizer Club. I actually had all the fabric and directions by the door and ready to go. When I got up in the morning, I decided that I needed to work on La Pass. I don’t want that lingering, but I also need some hand work. Also, I really wanted to work on it. I have several bags cut out, so I didn’t need to cut out another one.
![Month 18 Rosette](https://artquiltmaker.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/20230902_213951_wm-sm-300x205.jpg)
I had some help folding the top into quarters and then started working on the top. The top, for me, is the side with Month 18. I don’t really know what I am doing, but my goal is to get some straight edges of border fabric that I can trim to a real border. Where possible, I’ll sew in larger pieces normally. I still intend to check a couple of books and see if they provide any advice.
![Month 18 with Zen Chic border fabric](https://artquiltmaker.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/20230902_214048_wm-sm-300x262.jpg)
At first, I started clipping paper pieces to the edges with a note as to which fabric I needed. As you can see (photo, above), I stopped that and just clipped paper pieces with the border fabric basted to the spot where I wanted to add them.
This meant that I had pieces ready to sew on to the quilt.
![Month 18 finishing detail](https://artquiltmaker.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/20230902_214218_wm-sm-300x218.jpg)
The month 18 rosette will be the hardest part, I think, because it is the largest rosette sticking out of the quilt. It means there is a lot of space next to the rosette that needs to be filled in. Lindsay had an idea for her quilt to add a star or other small motif in the middle of a large piece. I am going to do one thing at a time and will figure it out as I go along.
![Creating weirdly shaped pieces](https://artquiltmaker.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/20230902_113140_wm-sm-225x300.jpg)
Part of the deal with the border is that I want to use large pieces. I need to follow the tutorial I wrote with Kelly Pena on creating center medallions. There are no center medallions, but the same principle applies.
In this case, I added a skinny triangle to a pentagon to make some other shape whose name I couldn’t tell you. This will fill in a larger space and alleviate the need to sew a bunch of small pieces together using the same fabric.