Commentary about works in progress, design & creativity
I ending up giving away one of the EPP balls I made to a surprise baby of a friend. I had some leeway with the great niece/nephew due in October, so I made another one very quickly.
This one doesn’t have any novelty fabrics, but is still fun.
As mentioned yesterday, I got the Half Hexie Star back from Colleen finally. It is just in time to bind it and have it ready to give as a wedding gift. I am also pleased that I was able to show it at the guild meeting yesterday.
Colleen did a great job, as usual, quilting this. She said the binding of the two ends was the most challenging. I am really glad she put the first side of the binding on the quilt by machine for me. It will make the handwork much easier and get it done faster.
She used flowers and leaves as the quilting design. I am pleased with how it looks.
This EPP Ball #6 is also finished, though not due until October.
As I said in the previous post these go together very quickly. I was able to stuff a couple of them at the same time.
Someone suggested I made smaller ones and I was reminded of the juggling balls set I made for my niece.
EPP Ball #5 is finished also. I finished it a few days ago and already gave it to the baby of a friend.
I have said before that I really enjoy making these and it is still true.
The EPP Ball #4 is finished. I am pleased because the baby is due soon. I’ll have the quilt done as well by the time I need to send them off.
I have slowly been working on La Pass, but I need to lay it out again. I didn’t take good photos the last time I organized parts of the border so I don’t know where to put the weirdly shaped pieces I created.
Most people will be horrified to see this quilt laying casually like this. Don’t be. Fabric is sturdy and we don’t step on it. I often fold it up so I can work on one section, but it eventually becomes unfolded and drapes near where I sit on the couch while I am at work. It is usually ready to go when I sit down to watch TV.
I laid out the La Pass quilt in order to work more on the border. I am struggling this this section, which is getting on my nerves.
I don’t know if I want to keep those butterfly pentagons in that place or replace them with background fabrics.
I consulted with my friend Lindsay the other day and she has some good ideas, which I am contemplating.
The other day I talked about working on La Pass. I was feeling some kinship with women who worked on large projects in small spaces as I worked on it after laying out the border.
This is what it looks like when I work on it in our living room. The quilt takes up the whole coffee table and my supplies are on the table next to where I sit. In the photo you can see my Sew Together bag in the bottom left. A larger table would be better, but it works as is.
I finally started working on the La Pass Border again. I took the quilt and all the supplies to Sew Day and laid out the pieces for another section of the La Pass border.
As I explained, I lay out the paper pieces I need, label them, then do the basting and, finally, the sewing.
I am about to reach another side of the quilt where I already worked on the border. I don’t know if I am done with that side yet. If nothing else, I am finishing my first pass. I may need to continue and get to a point where I can add a straight piece of border on each side.
I am thinking of trimming. One of the good things about working on this at Sew Day is that I can lay a bunch of the piece out and see more of what I am doing. At home, I need to lay it out on the floor and at the moment, there isn’t space.
In this image, I thought maybe I had enough of a border. However, I think I may need to add more later.
It is so nice to work on this again after dinner.
Slowly, but surely, I am making progress. I finished the one side I was working on last week and am now on to the next side.
You can see my Post-it notes** as described in my Border Methodology post.
In this corner, I decided to add a bit to the red star and put my border fabric around it. I’ll probably end up cutting some of the star off, but I thought it would look weird to have border pieces where star pieces should be.
Yay for some progress!
**N. B. : Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops and small businesses. However, if you are too busy or can’t find what you need there, I use Amazon affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s 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.
My new system works very well. I am pleased that I was able to sew the border pieces I prepared without drama or sewing the wrong pieces in the wrong place and having to rip out.
The white you see might look a little weird. AT this point it doesn’t have to be even, but it will be even later when I – or someone (ha!) – cut a straight line.
I am so pleased with how that green rosette came out. The green spikes really are highlighted. They have some space to breathe.
One issue I had was the WonderClips** getting in the way of each other. That was a minor detail since the system worked so well. Another thing I learned is to just baste a small section at a time. I don’t need to try to organize an entire border (one side) all at once. I am making good progress a little at a time.
**N. B. : Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops and small businesses. However, if you are too busy or can’t find what you need there, I use Amazon affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s 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 decided I needed a way to keep the border pieces in order. There is no pattern for the border, so I am creating as I go along. I have shown you some photos of what I am doing in recent weeks.
I added some pieces to another part of the border, which is a multi-step process:
From the basting to the sewing, I was finding that the pieces I had basted didn’t fit, thus I needed a system.
You see what I came up with above. I put a Post-it note** with a number on the quilt, then I put a corresponding post it note with the same number on the border pieces I will be adding.
You see WonderClips** in the mix as well.I don’t want those Post-its to fall off and they don’t stick long term to fabric, thus the WonderClips.
So far, so good. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
**N. B. : Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops and small businesses. However, if you are too busy or can’t find what you need there, I use Amazon affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s 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 finally dragged La Pass out again and started working on the side of the border I talked about before. I haven’t worked on it lately because I was gone, then the cleaners were coming, and [ add in a bunch of other excuses ]. I meant to work on it last weekend, but only had one day to do my own projects at home and just didn’t get to it. I regretted it and determined to, at least, baste a few pieces during the immediate past weekend. I made good progress and followed up with some basting during Craft Night.
The section, left, is about halfway down the side. I plan to add in that purple dot star point so it sticks into the border a little. I like that rosette with the orange striped diamonds and think it will look good finished.
I am going back and forth with combining pieces and adding a lot of single pieces. It should have been obvious, but I am finding that a weirdly shaped piece is harder to baste than single pieces and the mess ends up looking weird in the end. I am back to combining some shapes, but not as many as I thought I would.
I am back from my trip to Portland. As usual, I went to get my mom away from home for a rest and to see my sister, the YM and some friends.
Unfortunately, La Pass is too big to bring with me on trips now. But I am working on it every spare moment I can. DH was gone for a week and I just left it laying on the living room floor and worked on it as I passed by.
I decided, and I hope I can remember, that I would work on this side. I plan to fill in with pieces up to the tip of that green spike, then sew on a larger piece of background fabric. I think most of this side will get cut off, but I still need to add some background pieces to straighten up the edges.
So far, I have only put the paper pieces down on the floor. I haven’t taken the time to tape them together and create larger sections from them. I need to do that soon as I can’t leave it on the floor forever, especially with DH home now.
I have the feeling that the border might take me as long as the top of the quilt. If it weren’t for that one fabulous rosette, I might just cut off the edges and move on with my life.
I did do some organization the other day, which gave me almost a week of evenings with hand sewing ready to go. I know there will be an end, but I haven’t seen it yet, so it seems to be an ever ending process.
I do get small bonuses, which include finishing some points, like the green ones shown in the photo, that I didn’t expect to finish. They will be sticking into the background, so will show up nicely.
At least I hope they will.
There is a certain amount of hunting and gathering that I have to do at least once a week. I have to figure out which rosettes to finish and which to cut off, then how I will deal with the background.
I just have to get some straight edges, then I can sew larger pieces of fabric to those edges and be done.