La Pass Month 9 Received

La Pass Month 9 arrives
La Pass Month 9 arrives

The day after I finished La Pass M8, Month 9 arrived. More green.

I am still in awe of the way Pink Door gets these out every month.

La Pass Month 9 fabrics
La Pass Month 9 fabrics

The fabrics are nicer than last month’s fabrics – brighter, more clear, not as dull. I am replacing the solid with a more emerald color. I just don’t like that solid green. It reminds me of camouflage, the military and the less of that I have to think about right now the better. My only concern is that it will be too close to the mineral green (top center). The fabric I will use is from Art Gallery. It is the perfect color.

La Pass Month 8 Finished

La Pass month 8 finished
La Pass month 8 finished

Another month of La Pass is finished. This was a lot of pieces, but I powered through and I am really happy I was able to keep up especially in light of my trip to Portland.

It was kind of a hassle to haul this giant piece across states, but it was also good for me to have some sewing to do while I was away. It was a little of a stressful trip and sewing always helps me relax.

La Pass Month 8 More Progress

As crazy as it was, I brought La Pass Month 8 with me to Portland. I was able to get a few pieces sewn down once we got to Portland.

La Pass Month 8 Rosette in progress
La Pass Month 8 Rosette in progress

I am adding Month 8 pieces to the Month 7 rosette in a ring like I did with Month 1 and 2.

I don’t know if I am sewing the pieces in the most efficient way, but my method is working for me. It is also just evolving. On this piece, I started sewing a whole section together. You can see that on the top towards the right. It didn’t seem to make sense to me to do that way; it seemed awkward somehow.

I tried to think of the pieces in the Hearts and Cones configuration I talked about before. I couldn’t see the pieces that way and nobody in the La Pass/Pink Door FB group made any suggestions. I decided that getting the black diamonds in place would get them out of the way and they would be less annoying to sew on their own. They are to see because of the black table, but they are in between the butterflies.

Later, I wanted to sew while the YM cooked, but I didn’t want to bring my entire kit into the kitchen so I sewed the mineral (acid green fabric) pentagons into sets of two then added them to the Month 7 rosette later. I haven’t added them all yet, as I am trying to alternate the sewing the star points with sewing other pieces. Once I get all of the mineral pentagons then I will just sew chunks of small pentagons and star points to the piece.

I am still enjoying this project. I can’t wait to get back to it later today.

La Pass Month 8 All Basted

La Pass Month 8 basted
La Pass Month 8 basted

I cut and basted a few of those damn triangles at a couple of meetings last week, but did the bulk of the work at Sew Day. I divided up the different shapes and alternated the skinny triangles with all the other shapes. I got the basting done and was able to do a bit of stitching before Sew Day was over.

I also sewed in the evening, so I have a good start for Month 8.

La Passacaglia Month 8

La Pass Month 8 BOM kit
La Pass Month 8 BOM kit

La Pass Month 8 arrived. I am so excited. I had less than a week of no La Pass and it made me crazy. It made me crazy even though I worked on the Half Hexie EPP.

I get so much satisfaction out of the La Pass monthly BOM work. It is especially good now that I have dedicated time and I am not stressed out trying to finish each month knowing I don’t have enough time.

La Passacaglia Month 7 Done!

La Pass Rosettes Month 7
La Pass Rosettes Month 7

Yep! I finished M7 over the weekend just in time, too because Month 8 will be arriving soon.

I am really pleased with how the ombre looks on the larger rosette. I still want to place the fabrics so they look woven, but I didn’t want to mess up that cool ombre effect. There is another large rosette, so I will plan to do it on that one.

The Effects of Basting Update

Remember I talked the other day about changing the way I basted EPP pieces with bunny ears? Well, I used some of those pieces and came up with some interesting results.

EPP basting update results
EPP basting update results

Some of the pieces don’t meet.  Is this problematic? I don’t know yet, but it isn’t ideal.

I tried to stitch the edges of the pentagons together as tightly as I could to minimize the hole.

Basting Update - back
Basting Update – back

The back shows must the same. I did the pieces (shown in the photo on the right) first and hoped that when I added the second pentagon that they would end up together. No such luck.

We’ll have to see what the effect is later. For now, I think I will try to manage the bunny ears.

 

La Pass M7 Rosette #1

La Pass Month 7 Rosette #1
La Pass Month 7 Rosette #1

I finished the first rosette for month 7 and am pleased with how it came out. The ombre fabric looks good. I’ll be interested to see how it looks in the entire piece.

Now I am frantically working on the second rosette.

The notice came that Month 8 will shortly be in the mail so I need to speed along.

Basting Updates

You’d think that basting would be basting. As I mentioned the other day, there are a couple of different kinds of basting. The other day I found that I can improve upon my glue basting.

I have been trying to manage my bunny ears. Until now I have basted so the diamond bunny ears are folded in the same direction. For triangles, I make sure I fold them in all different directions, so all of the bunny ears don’t end up in one location when sewing.

Basting: folding the bunny ears in
Basting: folding the bunny ears in

Recently, I saw a picture that someone posted of their glue basting and realized I could fold the bunny ears in.

Don’t ask me why I didn’t think of this before. I just didn’t.

I wasn’t quite sure how this would work out and I didn’t realize I could do it until I had only two diamonds and one triangle to fill in.

Basting: bunny ears under control
Basting: bunny ears under control

The overall technique works. There are no bunny ears to manage. (photo right: shows the piece half basted).

The only potential issue I see is that the area where the bunny ears would be are a lot thicker than the other areas. There are also several layers of glue. The triangle points are particularly thick.

We’ll see if that is an issue and I’ll report back.

La Pass M7 Progress

La Pass M7 rosette #1
La Pass M7 rosette #1

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.

La Pass M7 Basting

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.

La Pass M7 basted
La Pass M7 basted

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.

La Pass M7 Arrives

La Pass M7 BOM bundle arrives
La Pass M7 BOM bundle arrives

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!

La Pass M7 BOM bundle
La Pass M7 BOM bundle

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.

APfE v.2 Finished

A Place for Everything finished: closed
A Place for Everything finished: closed

I finally finished the A Place for Everything Bag. This bag is not for the faint of heart. If I had known what it would be like, I might not have made it, but I am glad I did.

I have a love-dislike relationship with ByAnnie patterns. There are a lot of them. Many of the bag shapes are interesting and useful. I can’t, however, wrap my mind around some of the directions. This is not a surprise to those of you who have been reading for a long time. My brain doesn’t work like others. Videos have been helpful. In this case, I found that Annie skips some steps that are considered very basic. After looking through the basics videos, I emailed them and they gave me some suggestions, but also said they don’t have enough resources to do full length videos for every project. Sigh. I blundered through.

Suddenly, the bag was put together and just needed finishing touches, as mentioned the other day.

I spent a couple of evenings hand sewing the binding down. I know that takes time, but I couldn’t stand the thought of cramming the bag through the machine. I had the time so I hand sewed the binding. I looks great.

APfE: pages strapped in
APfE: pages strapped in

The strap that keeps the ‘pages‘ in place was WAY too long. Instead of trying to figure out what was going on, I just cut it off, resewed the velcro and moved on with my life.

Despite the problems, I am pleased with the way this came out. I spent a lot of time on the details and it shows. The bag isn’t perfect, but it will be great for when I take the project to Sew Day next week.

6 Months of La Pass

6 Months of La Pass
6 Months of La Pass

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.

 

 

 

 

 

**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.

 

La Pass Month 3 Finished

La Passacaglia Month 3 complete
La Passacaglia Month 3 complete

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.