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.
Finishing points and adding background
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.
Finishing up a star
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.
I have been dabbling on working on the border. The other day, I tried putting a bunch of pieces together to make a larger piece. I wasn’t sure it was right, so I asked Lindsay, who said it looked pretty normal to her.
I laid this out on the coffee table close to the time I was finishing up for the night. I didn’t want to start anything new right then, but I took a photo so I could remember what I had laid out.
La Pass: larger border piece ready for fabric
After Lindsay confirmed, I laid out the top and looked at it like that rather than bunched up on the coffee table. It looked like it would work, so I started taping the pieces together.
I have also been replacing some pieces where the motifs were never finished with background pieces. I don’t know if it will make the other motifs look better, but I think it will help them stand out.
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
