Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
I finished the first M7 rosette or so I thought. I wanted to weave the outer pentagons and thought I would wait until Month 8 came to see what Pink Door did about the outer ring.
The outer pentagons use an ombre fabric and Pink Door has leveraged the ombre qualities for those pentagons.
I may want to keep the gradation smooth rather than including the weaving motif I have seen. Stay tuned.
I like cutting projects out at Sew Day and really struggled with whether I wanted to cut out a new bag or if I wanted to work on La Pass’ basting.
I ended up cutting and basting the rest of my La Pass M7 pieces during Sew Day. I had cut enough during a couple of work meetings on Monday to sew a bit in the evenings, but I really needed to finish the rest. Since I didn’t have any more of those types of meetings later in the week, I decided to do it at Sew Day.
I am glad I did. I am getting the first of the month 7 rosettes done, which is good.
As an aside, I put my A Place for Everything bag to use, as intended, and it was admired by a few people, which made me feel really good.
As I mentioned, I worked on the Half Hexie Star project while waiting for the next installment of La Pass.
These stars are made from the new fabrics I bought on my birthday. I love that dark blue dot even more.
I did notice that the papers feel significantly flimsier than the La Pass pieces. Pink Door cuts their own papers. They must use better paper? I wonder if I would notice if I glue basted this project? I might try it.
Regardless, I am happy that I made a little progress.
Before La Pass started, I was determined to thread baste. That is the way I am basting the Half Hexie Star project and it was what I knew. I was also concerned about putting glue on my fabric.
The BOM came with glue. I wasn’t worried since I have a lot of thread suitable for basting. I read through the posts on the Pink Door private group and some people talked about thread basting. I watched various videos on EPP that were recommended and they all talked about glue basting. This was so puzzling to me. Weren’t people worried about the glue on the fabric?
I ended up using the glue and I like it. It is faster and time is of the essence with this project. As you have noticed, the BOMs keep coming and I want to keep up.
For the first time, I noticed the differences in basting as I got into the process at Sew Day. As I mentioned, I did a little bit of work on the Half Hexie project while I was waiting for the month 7 installment of La Pass. For the Half Hexie Star project, I am thread basting. For La Pass, I am glue basting. What I noticed is that I like the tightness of the glue basting.
I have used the Half Hexie pieces over and over. I am not sure I could do that if they were glue basted. I haven’t taken out the papers from the La Pass project yet.
I didn’t think it would make much of a difference, but it really does. It can be difficult to get the needle into the edge, but I really like the way the pieces come together.
This makes me wonder if I should start glue basting for the Half Hexie Star project? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll try it. Do you have any experience?
Month 7 of my La Passacaglia finally arrived. It seemed like it took forever. After months of being behind, I caught up with month 6 and month 3, which meant that I was completely caught up. During my La Pass break, I also finished two bindings and wrote a bunch of cards. I really missed the stitching of La Pass while I was waiting. What a change from a few months ago when I was feeling like it was overwhelming me!
I unpacked the bundle, washed the fabric and started in on basting. Bleah on basting!, but it is part of the process and I have to do it to get to the stitching.
Pink Door has done a masterful job using the ombre in this month. I am really glad I am doing the BOM.
I am one third of the way finished with La Passacaglia! Can you believe it? I can’t. I am amazed that the time has flown by. Towards the end of 2022 I should be finished with the piecing.
I may sew some of the rosettes together where it makes sense, but we’ll see. I have about a week to get some bindings done before Month 7 is shipped.
I thought I was crazy when I committed to this project, but I don’t feel crazy now. I am really happy that I have the group to rely on and also my guild-mate Lindsay. This project is totally doable with these tools.
I can understand why people move on to another Willyne Hammerstein EPP** after they finish La Pass. The Half Hexie EPP I started some time ago seems super boring now.
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After finishing Month 6, I went back to month 3 and finished the last bits over the weekend. I am thrilled to be completely caught up.I didn’t have that much left to sew on Month 3, but in total there was a lot to complete and it seemed to take a long time. Those thin triangles are everywhere!
I do feel slightly bereft at not having anything to work on for La Pass. I gave myself a little shake, however and started working on Gelato’s binding, which has been waiting for months.
I finished the rosettes for Month 6!!! I can’t tell you how excited I am to report that completion. It really makes a difference sewing every evening for an hour or so.
I also notice that I am more in tune with the project. I am more aware of strategies to line things up and I don’t feel stressed about stitching fast, so I am making fewer errors.
Of course, the giant puzzle will come back at some point, but it won’t be before April, so I have more time.
First, I finished the center of one rosette and I was thrilled.
The colors aren’t really my style, but I was too exhausted to make any changes.
I do kind of like the fussy cut parrots. I know I have been saying that I am not using many of the animals, but I like the colorful quality of these parrots, so I used them. They don’t scream “this is a Tula quilt” to me. I may be deluding myself.
Lindsay pointed out that she didn’t like the alternating fabrics (pentagons). I realized it is not a favorite either. My go-to response is that in the grand scheme of the whole quilt, it won’t be that noticeable. Also, as I have said before, I bought the fabric option and I need to use it.
Now I am back to finishing up Month 3. I might be able to finish it tonight.
We are now 1/3 of the way finished with this project. Can you believe it? Time has flown by.
My idea was to finish months as they come, then go back to M3 to finish those rosettes. I am happy to say I am making progress. Not finished, but making progress.
I am working on the last rosette. Somehow I forgot that I had waited to baste fabric for some of M3 pieces until I was downstairs piecing away and started to run into the lack of pieces problem. I know I waited because I wasn’t sure when I would get to M3 and didn’t want the glue to fail.
I don’t want to use the hat fabric that came with the BOM. I need to find some fabric and baste those 60 degree diamonds before I can make much more progress.
I am thinking of using the Carrie Bloomston fabric with the pink triangles again. It will create some continuity with other pieces and is far enough away from the M5 piece where I used it to not look bad. Even though most of the fabrics for these rosettes are in the lavender range, I think it could work. I could also use the zebras I cut and didn’t use, or more Dripping Roses. I think I need to look through my fabrics and decide. I bought a Marti Michell Magic Mirror**, as mentioned yesterday, that I will try.
**I use affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this blog.
I am pleased to say that I finished month five completely before the M6 shipping notice arrived. Hooray!
Yes, I talked about my incremental progress before. I know you are seeing a lot of this project, but it is consuming me.
As mentioned, I have been working steadily after dinner on La Pass. As a result I am making progress.
This rosette is half of the work I need to do for month five. It is the smaller of the two rosettes.
I like the way this one turned out. The center is outstanding.There is an unexpected interaction between the very center and the black & white stripes. I really like it.
Where the pink triangles are placed should have been orange. The pink goes well with the pink triangles in the center. Oh well, design choice!
Part of M3 included Tula’s Skunk fabric. As cute as those skunks are, I am determined not to have animal faces looking at me from La Pass. Still, I want to use the fabric that comes with the Block of the Month since I am paying for it.
One person used the tails, which looked fantastic. I didn’t think of that before I cut my pieces. I decided to use all of the flowers and arrange them in kind of a rainbow. The colors are subtle., so it doesn’t scream rainbow.
I still have some other pieces to sew on to this rosette, but will finish M5 first.
As you saw from the other post, I was able to get this rosette together, but I did really struggle. I couldn’t get the points of the various sections to line up. I am not sure what the problem was.
Yes, I know if someone can’t see it from a galloping horse, I shouldn’t worry about it and, ultimately, I accepted my fate and just did the best I could.
The whole point of EPP, however, is that it is possible to line up complicated designs because all the fabric is stabilized and there is no bias stretch to worry about.
The papers are die cut. I am using quilt shop quality fabric and I wash and press all of the fabric. Still, when I put the first section of the yellow and grey rosette together, the points were off.
I wasn’t as worried about the center point (yellow meets stripes) as I was about the edges (see orange and blue arrows). If there are gaps there, there will be a gap between yellow pentagons.
In order to try to get the pieces in better alignment, I unpicked what I had sewn and tried again.
I was able to re-center them a little bit so the future gap on the side would be more evenly distributed, but I wasn’t able to get them lined up as perfectly as I would have liked.
Still, I think the Rosette looks good and adding other pieces doesn’t seem to be a problem.
Galloping horse.
Now that the giant puzzle is put away, I have moved my EPP work back to the living room for after dinner stitching. I am making much more progress. Of course, the living room looks a little messy, but not as bad as it did.
I have all of my pieces laid out on the coffee table so I can just start stitching as soon as I sit down.
I haven’t quite put away Thanksgiving, so you can see the Thanksgiving tablemat I made a few years ago underneath everything.
In this picture, there is a jumble. I am still working on M3 intermittently between finishing other months. Since I am able to spend more time working more on the project, I expect I will be able to finish it in a couple of months. I think I will have a little time work on it once I finish M5, which you can see on top with the yellow ring.
I decided I should use the hat fabric that came with the month 5 shapes and designs. I cut the fabric, I basted the fabric to the papers and kept telling myself that it would be ok.
We all know that means trouble and this set of diamonds just didn’t make my heart sing. Also, it made me feel like I was missing an opportunity for fussy cutting.
I was looking for some other fabric and came across some Carrie Bloomston triangles, which had the right grey plus a spark of pink. It is much better.
I thought about putting the pink at the tip, but then decided it would look great centered a little more. A happy accident is that the pink triangles created a star in the center! I am a lot happier with this fabric.