Half Hexie Star Top Finished

Half Hexie Star Top complete
Half Hexie Star Top complete

I finished this top last night! I am pretty excited even though I still have a long way to go to finish it.

I rushed to get a photo as I went to bed, so it isn’t the best photo. You can see some of the details in the post I published before.

I have been working on this quilt since August of 2012! I thought I had started it in 2016. Time really flies.

I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have made it this far! Assuming I can get the piece prepped to be quilted and make a date with Colleen, I will enter this in the President’s Challenge for the guild.

Half Hexie Star Progress

Half Hexie Stars - July 2023
Half Hexie Stars – July 2023

I have made good progress on the edge of the Half Hexie Stars as I take a break from La Passacaglia.

I am not angry at La Pass and have a pretty solid plan for finishing. I just need to pull fabrics and finish off some rosettes. I am working on this at the moment to give me some time to think about it.

I laid what I have of the top out on the living room floor and am pleased with the look and feel.

Half Hexie Stars corner - July 2023
Half Hexie Stars corner – July 2023

I have very little to finish. I have the upper left hand corner and the top edge and then I will be done.

I sewed on four foreground stars last night, which leaves nine more foreground and background stars to finish. Of course, the top edge (see photo above) also needs some stars sewn in, but one thing at a time.

Looking at the top laid out now, I can’t help but think I should have put the foreground stars on the diagonal. Too late now, however.

I have enough background stars sewn together to finish the upper left hand corner, but I needed to choose a few more fabrics for the foreground. They are all cut and ready; they just needed to be selected.

I am pretty pleased with how tidy the edge came out once I added the small triangles and diamonds. I am so grateful for the time I spent working on this piece at Sew Day a few months ago. That time was well spent as it gave me a good strategy for finishing.

I don’t know if I will finish the top before I get back to La Pass. We’ll see.

La Pass – the Other Half

La Passacaglia - the Other Half
La Passacaglia – the Other Half

Yes, I finished the other half. There was one long seam that took me about two evenings (1.5-2 hours?) to sew. That created this giant half.

Now I will sew the two halves together. I bought the Sew Tite Magnums**, which Lindsay recommended, but they haven’t arrived yet and I want to get on.

I am kind of in shock that I have ONE SEAM LEFT. Granted it is a realllllly long seam, but still after all these month ONE SEAM!!!

Half a La Passacaglia

Half of La Passacaglia
Half of La Passacaglia

Yes, half of my La Passacaglia top is sewn together. I think it looks pretty good. I do think there were some things I would change if I had known then what I know now.

I was telling Lindsay that I have learned so much making this quilt. I am really sad it is ending. I will probably try another one on my own. Nothing is happening before I finish this one, however.

La Pass Month 18 Expanded

La Pass Month 18 rosette expanded
La Pass Month 18 expanded

I am going to create a border that has some of the rosettes sticking out. It will be similar to the quilts in an Instragram video I found.

Most of the quilts that do this finishing style don’t finish out the Month 18 rosette, which is at the top. I wanted to, because of the woven look I had started on it. I wanted a rosette with that full woven look and it was too late to piece any of the other large rosettes together like this.

I am really pleased with how Month 18 came out. I might do another one as a table topper. We’ll see.

Ripping Out Papers

La Pass- pulling out papers
La Pass- pulling out papers

Randomly, I have been pulling out papers. I don’t want to, but unwieldy is starting not to be the right word for the massive piece of unyielding fabric and paper with which I am working.

I have to be careful not to pull papers out near the edges.  I also am not confident in this step so I am pulling out papers near where I am working so I can better maneuver. I suppose I’ll be happy later when I don’t have as many papers to pull out.

Another La Pass OOPs

The other day I posted a La Pass update. That night I went to work on joining two large pieces including the one I posted. That’s when I found the OOPs.

La Pass - extra Month 12
La Pass – extra Month 12

The piece includes Month 12 rosettes, of which there are multiples. the arrow points to one of the Month 12 rosettes. My problem came when I was looking for a second M12 rosette to put next to the emerald and chartreuse rosette in the middle bottom of the piece shown.

I couldn’t find it. It turns out that I sewed the two Month 12 rosettes into, what would be, the same location, but on different sections. That meant I had too many pieces for one location and not enough for another. More ripping ensued.

La Pass section with extra M12 rosette
La Pass section with extra M12 rosette

For some reason ripping doesn’t bother me as much on this project. It is pretty easy to do, though a little messier than my normal ripping technique. I tend get a lot of little bits of thread everywhere.

The arrow in the ‘purple’ section (left) shows the other M12 rosette. I am leaving that one in and will start sewing it as soon as I have replaced some of the star points in the section above.

Star points have to be inserted into other rosettes to make the piece look cohesive. I may be able to start sewing the two large sections together soon. I still have to remove papers and may decide to do that first. Even a few would make the whole process a little easier.

La Pass Update

La Passacaglia - May 2023 update
La Passacaglia – May 2023 update

I have been working steadily on sewing the La Passacaglia rosettes together. As I watch others from the group post their finished quilts, I despair at finishing. However, I remember that I should not compare myself to others. I also note that I AM making progress.

This is the upper right hand corner. I have just added one of the M17 rosettes, the emerald and chartreuse rosette towards the bottom left.

Even though this is nowhere near the whole piece, it is quite large. I still have the papers, mostly, still on the back. The pieces are getting a little too unwieldy to keep them in much longer. Of course, the pieces I want to stay in are starting to loosen and fall out. Figures!

Pulling out the Papers

La Pass back of rosette
La Pass back of rosette

I started pulling out the papers for some parts of La Passacaglia.

This is rosette #1 and I carefully pulled out the papers from some of the centers. It didn’t completely work out with some other rosettes.

I have to start taking out some of the papers sometime. I will continue even when I have to put some back in again.

La Pass Assembly Challenges

La Pass Assembly problem
La Pass Assembly problem

I am well into the assembly stage and came across a problem when I tried to insert an edge piece into one of the sections I have completed.

The problem was that there was another whole section to add where that left hand orange arrow is pointing. DH and I got on the floor – we don’t have a table big enough – and compared piece by piece. We did this in an effort to figure out where the problem was.

We eventually found it on the other other side of the giant green rosette. I had turned the rosette too far to the left. Yes, it all needed to be ripped out.

These things happen. Onward.

Putting La Pass Together

La Pass Assembly March 2023
La Pass Assembly March 2023

Now that Month 18 is finished, I have started to put the entire La Pass top together.

It is hard and unwieldy, but I am really liking how the rosettes look together. I need to figure out how others are managing this process to see if there is an easier way.

One thing I noticed is that those dark blue spikes look really good!

La Pass Month 17 Rosettes

La Pass rosettes Month 17
La Pass rosettes Month 17

I never posted both Month 17 Rosettes. I’d like to have a full set here on the blog, so here they are.

This was the month was substituted for Month 16 when the fabric for Month 16 got delayed. I changed a number of different fabrics in these rosettes, so they look different.

One of the reasons I could never do this project on my own, as I am sure I have said, is breaking down the rosettes in order to choose the fabrics. I got much more confident as the project went on and I might be able to tackle another of Wilynne Hammerstein’s patterns on my own. I have a few things to finish first, so stay tuned for that.

Assembling La Pass But…

Because I finished Month 18, I started assembling the rosettes. The goal, after all is to have a quilt top, right?

La Pass: Upper right hand corner - wrong
La Pass: Upper right hand corner – wrong

I was very pleased that I finished assembling the first bits, the top right corner. Then I realized I hadn’t lined the pieces up properly – or they had gotten out of alignment somehow – and I had sewed the pieces together wrong. Sigh.

I need to turn the bottom part a bit, because I need to add one of the Month 9 rosettes to the side of month 18. The flat part of Month 18 needs to be turned 90 degrees as it is parallel to the top of the quilt.