Group project – Page 54 – Artquiltmaker Blog

The Petrillo Bag Along Week 2

If you are just joining us, please read last week’s post or Pam’s post.

If you read between the lines of my last post, I was a little ahead of those of you, because I had already gathered my supplies back in March and had started to cut. I did want to be a little ahead of you, so I could give you some tips and tricks if I found any.

Nota bene: Kay at Tantalizing Stitches sent the sew-in magnetic snaps out the day after I ordered them.

Fabric

The fun part was choosing fabric. You can see the colorways below, but the particulars about what I chose are:

For the exterior: Heather Bailey’s Pop Daisy from the Pop Garden line (Westminster Fibers #HB02). It is a few years old and had been slated for a back, but called to me when I looked in the Fabric Closet – green, yellow, red print
For the lining: Savon Bouquet by Verna Mosquera for FreeSpirit – pink polka dots
Straps and accents: City Weekend by Oliver & S for Moda (Pattern #11165, I think. It might be L1165)- yellow

I am not sure what possessed me to choose these colors and this combination of the three. It was grey and foggy at my house the day I chose the fabrics, so, perhaps, I was seeking cheerfulness. I also wanted to use some dots for something. I do like a light interior for bags. It is hard to see what is inside if the chosen fabric is too dark.

Organization

Week 2 is all about cutting, so I did the cutting. It took me awhile to get the cutting done. I would say it took me about 3-4 hours. I was doing laundry, ate lunch and went to pick up the Young Man in between, so it is hard to say. It did take me a long time as I was trying to be really careful and not miscut. Don’t plan on doing it in a few minutes.

There are a lot of pieces to cut for this bag, so take the time to be organized. I would add the following to the supply list:

sticky notes, though paper will do as well
Wonderclips
pen

I like to pin a piece of paper or sticky note to each cut pattern piece with the corresponding name from the pattern, e.g. Lining Flap, and the size. Even if it doesn’t help me truly be more organized, I feel more organized.

I also felt like I needed a spreadsheet to track everything that I needed to cut. I think it would look like a main column of what parts needed to be cut and a main row of the materials out of which the parts needed to be cut. I might also put dual columns for each put a tick mark in one noting I needed to cut a part from that materials and the second column for when I had done it. I could have just ticked off the lines on the pattern. I didn’t because I didn’t want to confuse myself for the future use of this pattern.

Cutting

Sara wants you to cut the fabrics in the order listed on the pattern. In some places, she has you cut a smaller piece before a larger piece. I like to cut all the larger pieces first, so I rearranged a few, but really tried to stick to her pattern directions. I would like to see a layout sketch for the pattern pieces on fabric in the directions.

There is enough fabric to cut all the pattern pieces. Sara did a great job estimating yardage.

I did cut one piece wrong early on and had to piece together enough of the lining fabric later for one of the bottom pieces. As I haven’t made this pattern before, I am hoping it will be ok. I am going to rummage through the fabric closet and see if I have another piece of the pink fabric (shown above) and cut a whole piece out of it. You could add an additional quarter of a yard, if you are worried about screwing up the cutting.

I just used my rotary cutter to cut the Soft & Stable where possible. I did notice, during cutting of the Soft & Stable, the sounds of paper being cut. I couldn’t feel any paper on it, especially something like paper covering a fusible. I am not sure what it is made of or if it was a good idea to use a rotary cutter, but I did want to speed the process along as much as I could.

Fun and Games

The Petrillo Bag Along

Petrillo Bag PDF Sewing Pattern by Sew Sweetness

The Petrillo Along is starting!

You might remember that I saw this bag a few weeks ago and extolled its virtues, most of which had to do with it being a vertical bag that was good sized, but not a Rotator Cuff Injury inducing size. I posted a ‘warning’ in a post on March 18 that we would be starting soon and Pam, of Hip to Be a Square fame, talked about the bag along in her episode 121 podcast. We have finally gotten our acts together, other projects in order and are ready to go. Pam already posted the notice of the ‘Along’ yesterday and I am following along in her footsteps to catch my readers as well.

Here is the schedule that Pam laid out:

Week 1 (week of 4/7/2013) – assemble pattern pieces, supplies, and get fabric cut out.
Week 2 (next week, starting on 4/14) – sew the bag.

I may have to modify it to:

Week 1 (week of 4/7/2013) – assemble pattern pieces, and supplies
Week 2 (week of 4/14/2013) – Cut out the fabric
Week 3 (starting on 4/21) – sew the bag
Week 4 (starting 4/28) – finish up

I know that we all have a different working pace and obligations. Pam works quickly, so don’t be intimidated by her pace. I have to be out of town a couple of times this month and I like to work slowly on bags. Pick (or make up) the schedule that works for you. Pam is in the middle of her Labyrinth quilt, so the only hope I have of finishing the Petrillo bag anywhere close to when Pam does is to get started immediately and sew like a demon. 😉 I would advise you to focus on having fun.

If you need to buy the pattern you can get it instantly (or nearly instantly) as it is a downloadable pattern. It is only $8.

There are some specialty supplies you need to probably get online. Sara suggests different places to get the supplies. I had seen Soft & Stable at the Road to California quilt show I attended last year. I was interested in trying it, but didn’t buy any as I didn’t have a suitable project at the time. Thus, for this project, I ended up buying the Soft and Stable from ByAnnie.com. I am not affilated with that site and don’t think it was the absolute cheapest site, but I was in a rush and wanted to make sure I got the right stuff. Amazon was out at the time. The package was sent out really quickly. I received the Soft & Stable in a few days.

I bought the snaps from AGraffSupplies on Etsy. I am not affiliated with that site. They had the snaps cheaper than Sara’s preferred vendor. I compared and I am pretty sure the snaps were the same. The confusing part about both Etsy shops was that it was hard to tell how many I was buying. I ended up with a big bag of magnetic snaps – many more than I needed. I’ll have to go on a bag making binge to use them all up. Nota bene: These turned out to the wrong ones. You need to buy SEW-IN magnetic snaps. I didn’t even realize such a thing existed.

I bought the Shape Flex, which seems to be muslin with fusible on the back from Beverly’s online.

Pam made the Aeroplane bag pattern and says “Sara’s patterns are awesomely written with clear instructions and lots of pictures”. Pam is making one change to the bag construction; rather than using the Soft & Stable, she will be using “a combination of Pellon Decor Bond (a home dec weight interfacing) along with Pellon Fusible Fleece.” If you want to make changes like that, then Pam is your girl. I wasn’t happy with the floopy results of changing out fusible fleece for two layers of regular batting and some interfacing when I made my last Chubby Charmer, so I am going to stick with the directions on supplies for the most part. It is also a good opportunity for me to try the Soft & Stable as well.

As Pam said, in addition to posting my progress here, I’ll be posting pictures to Sara’s usual Flickr group so she can see our work as well.

Go forth and make a Petrillo bag!

**Thanks to Sara at Sew Sweetness for allowing me to use her image.

Sampler Class: Foundation Piecing Part 5

This segment discusses sewing the block together. In order to get to this point, you should have completed parts 1 and two and three as well as part four.

Like piecing all other blocks, you want to sew smaller pieces together to make larger pieces, then sew the larger pieces together to complete the block. In part three, you should have cut any fabric for templates that did not have matching fabric patches. so, inventory your templates and make sure you have a fabric patch for each template. If you don’t, go back to part three.

In part 4 you also pinned:

Remember that the edges are not quite as smooth on the other (blue) side, but that is ok. Just remember to sew slowly and carefully.

Outer patches sewn - blue side up — Outer patches sewn – blue side up

Once those two patches are sewn, they might look a little rumpled, but once you turn them both right side up and press the section, they will look great.

Press which ever way you think will work best for your block.

Next, we will sew the corner section to the small pieced strip (Section D).

Nota bene: if you did not foundation piece the small strip, follow the directions in part 4 or part three to do so. If you haven’t done any foundation piecing you might want to start with this piece as it is smaller and less complex than the pointy triangles section.

Again you will need to pin. This time you are pinning your quarter circle corner piece and your small foundation pieced strip.

Take your quarter circle corner piece and your small foundation pieced strip and pin them together. I, first, line up the straight edges on the ends and pin them together (horizontally). I make sure the horizontal pins are out of the way of other pins and the sewing machine foot. they are used just to make sure my piece is in place while I put the other pins in.

I use a lot of pins. It works for me. I know there are other tutorials that are pinless or use minimal pins, but I want precision and pins give me precision. Put these two pieces together the way it works for you. Remember: you only have two hands.

Once you are happy with your pinning, get ready to sew. I put the non-pieced corner quarter circle on the bottom and the pieced part on the top. I try to make this a habit, though it doesn’t matter with this particular foundation pieced section. In some sections, like our spiky triangle section, it matters.

You can rip off the paper before you piece or not. I was having some other problems, so I ripped it off, but normally, I would leave it on until the very last second I could, e.g. before I took the pieced top to the quilter!

Attach your quarter inch foot and sew your small foundation pieced strip to your corner quarter circle. If you don’t know how to sew curves, take a look at the curves tutorial.

Once you are finished, press carefully. I press to the side with the least number of seams, or to the side that the fabric seems to be naturally inclined to lay. Your corner will look gorgeous like the one above.

Once you have the small foundation pieced strip attached to your quarter circle, you will sew it to your spiky triangles piece. You will, again, pin a lot, using the horizontal pin trick to stabilize the piece.

Again, as shown in the photo above, I put the foundation pieced part on top. In this case, you are sewing two foundation pieced sections together, so you can choose which you want on top. I chose the spiky triangles section to go on top, but it doesn’t really matter, since there are no points to worry about cutting off.

Next sew the two remaining sections together, press, again, towards the piece with the least number of seams and you should have a piece like the one below.

After all that work, you have a beautiful foundation pieced block. Pat yourself on the back!

Creative Prompt #202: Iris

My aunt loves irises and I was thinking about her and flowers today. Although ‘Iris’ was not on my original list of prompts, I thought it would inspire some wonderful responses. What will you create today?

flower

part of the eye

bearded iris

Incorporated Research Institute for Seismology

Integrated Risk Information System (US EPA)

GooGoo Dolls song

OCR Software and Document Management Systems

IRIS from Cirque du Soleil

Impact Reporting & Investment Standards

restaurant in New Orleans

In Greek mythology, Iris is the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. She is also known as one of the goddesses of the sea and the sky. (Wikipedia)

Illinois Research Information System

Iris Murdoch, born July 5, 1919

Iris Murdoch – “Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”

Definition: (Anatomy) “The iris (plural: irides or irises) is a thin, circular structure in the eye, responsible for controlling the diameter and size of the pupil and thus the amount of light reaching the retina. The color of the iris is often referred to as “eye color.”- (Wikipedia)

Definition: (Plant)- “Iris is a genus of 260–300^[1]^[2] species of flowering plants with showy flowers. It takes its name from the Greek word for a rainbow, referring to the wide variety of flower colors found among the many species.^[3] As well as being the scientific name, iris is also very widely used as a common name for all Iris species, though some plants called thus belong to other closely related genera. A common name for some species is ‘flags’, while the plants of the subgenus Scorpiris are widely known as ‘junos‘, particularly in horticulture. It is a popular garden flower.

The often-segregated, monotypic genera Belamcanda (blackberry lily), Hermodactylus (snake’s head iris), and Pardanthopsis (vesper iris) are currently included in Iris.”(Wikipedia)

Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and/or your blog.

We are also talking about this on Twitter. Use the hashtag #CPP

The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. I created this spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses.

Creative Prompt #201: Blood-Orange

fruit

color

band

expert marketing, strategy and innovation consultants

Adagio blood orange tea

Chobani blood orange yogurt

recipes

Blood orange DRY soda

Pinkberry blood orange frozen yogurt

blood orange margaritas

blood orange lemon bars recipe (this for Susan -@hqsuz)

Definition: “Red orange” redirects here. For the web color, see red-orange. For other uses, see Blood orange (disambiguation).

A sliced blood orange.

The blood orange is a variety of orange (Citrus × sinensis) with crimson, almost-blood-colored flesh. The fruit is smaller than an average orange; its skin is usually pitted, but can be smooth. The distinctive dark flesh color is due to the presence of anthocyanins, a family of antioxidant pigments common to many flowers and fruit, but uncommon in citrus fruits.^[1] The flesh develops its characteristic maroon color when the fruit develops with low temperatures during the night.^[2] Sometimes there is dark coloring on the exterior of the rind as well, depending on the variety of blood orange. The skin can be tougher and harder to peel than that of other oranges.

While all oranges are likely of hybrid origin between the pomelo and the tangerine,^[3] blood oranges originated as a mutation of the sweet orange.^[4]

Within Europe, the Arancia Rossa di Sicilia (Red Orange of Sicily) has Protected Geographical Status.^[5]” (Wikipedia)

We are also talking about this on Twitter. Use the hashtag #CPP

Creative Prompt #200: Sunset

We have reached 200! Amazing. Thanks for reading and playing along.

Sunrise, sunset – from Fiddler on the Roof

magazine – your guide to living in the west

The Sunset – Neighborhood in San Francisco

Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer to your goal. Elbert Hubbard

Inner Sunset, San Francisco

Sunset Hills to be named to the National Register of Historic Places (article)

St. Anne of the Sunset, Catholic Church in San Francisco (love the name and the church is beautiful)

Sunset Marquis, a boutique hotel in West Hollywood.

Sunset Boulevard (street)

sunrise/sunset calculator – NOAA

sunset provision

Sunset Boulevard (movie)

sunsetting

1988 movie directed by Blake Edwards;with Bruce Willis, James Garner, Malcolm McDowell, Mariel Hemingway. Tom Mix and Wyatt Earp team up to solve a murder

Sunset grill

Walt Whitman: Song at Sunset

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.” quote / Rabindranath Tagore

Definition: Sunset or sundown is the daily disappearance of the Sun below the western half of the horizon, i.e. at an azimuth greater than 180 degrees, as a result of Earth’s rotation.

The time of sunset is defined in astronomy as the moment when the trailing edge of the Sun’s disk disappears below the horizon. The ray path of light from the setting Sun is highly distorted near the horizon because of atmospheric refraction, making the sunset appear to occur when the Sun’s disk is already about one diameter below the horizon. Sunset is distinct from dusk, which is the time at which the sky becomes completely dark, which occurs when the Sun is approximately eighteen degrees below the horizon. The period between sunset and dusk is called twilight.

Locations north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Antarctic Circle experience no sunset or sunrise at least one day of the year, when the polar day or the polar night persist continuously for 24 hours.

Sunset creates unique atmospheric conditions such as the often intense orange and red colors of the Sun and the surrounding sky. (Wikipedia)

We are also talking about this on Twitter. Use the hashtag #CPP

Creative Prompt #199: Touch

TV Series with Kiefer Sutherland

iPod Touch

touch football

touch and go for awhile

touchdown

touch tone

social media mobile app

touch up her make up

Midas touch

touch screen

Adobe Photoshop Touch

one of the senses

touch of class

Please Touch Museum

touch therapy

get back in touch

Jin Shin Jyutsu (pronounced “jin shin jitsu”)

itouch

We are also talking about this on Twitter. Use the hashtag #CPP

Definition: (Merriam Webster) ransitive verb

: to bring a bodily part into contact with especially so as to perceive through the tactile sense : handle or feel gently usually with the intent to understand or appreciate <loved to touch the soft silk>

: to strike or push lightly especially with the hand or foot or an implement

: to lay hands upon (one afflicted with scrofula) with intent to heal

archaic

a : to play on (a stringed instrument)

b : to perform (a melody) by playing or singing

a : to take into the hands or mouth <never touches alcohol>

b : to put hands upon in any way or degree <don’t touch anything before the police come>; especially : to commit violence upon <swears he never touched the child>

: to deal with : become involved with <a sticky situation and I wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole>

: to induce to give or lend <touched him for ten dollars>

: to cause to be briefly in contact or conjunction with something <touched her spurs to the horse> <touched his hand to his hat>

a (1) : to meet without overlapping or penetrating : adjoin (2) : to get to : reach <the speedometer needle touched 80>

b : to be tangent to

c : to rival in quality or value <nothing can touch that cloth for durability>

: to speak or tell of especially in passing <barely touched the incident in the speech>

a : to relate to : concern

b : to have an influence on : affect

a : to leave a mark or impression on <few reagents will touch gold>; also : tinge

b : to harm slightly by or as if by contact : taint, blemish <fruit touched by frost>

c : to give a delicate tint, line, or expression to <a smile touched her lips>

d : to get a hit off or score a run against <touched him for three runs>

: to draw or delineate with light strokes

a : to hurt the feelings of : wound

b : to move to sympathetic feeling

intransitive verb

a : to feel something with a body part (as the hand or foot)

b : to lay hand or finger on a person to cure disease (as scrofula)

: to be in contact

: to come close : verge <your actions touch on treason>

: to have a bearing : relate —used with on or upon

a : to make a brief or incidental stop on shore during a trip by water <touched at several ports>

b : to treat a topic in a brief or casual manner —used with on or upon <touched upon many points>

— touch·able adjective

— touch·er noun

— touch base

: to come in contact or communication <coming in from the cold to touch base with civilization — Carla Hunt>

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