Tag: Piecing

Lupine is ready to go to Colleen for quilting. Not a great photo, but the quilt is large and doesn’t fit well on my design wall.

I am really pleased with how it came out. It is a but pink and purple, but doesn’t scream ‘little girl’ to me. I think the black really helps give it a good over all feel. 

In addition, black can be depressing. It did make my workroom a little dark, but overall the pink, purple and Carousel blue keep the black from creating a look that is too depressing.

I also finished the back. Mom said it looked a little brown, but I definitely used colored dots on black for the most part. One of the prints, a large-ish piece, middle bottom, does have dots that have more brown in them than I would normally use. 

This project used up most of my dots on black fabrics.

I am waiting for a black solid in order to make the binding. I was going to use a pink that matched the border (AGF Cherry Lipgloss), but Lil Sissy pointed out that a black (AGF Caviar) would contain the piece. I think she is right.

I chunked the Lupine quilt top, then sewed the spacer border on. The next step was the Flying Geese border.

Option 1:

The directions were to assemble two Flying Geese so it looks like the above. The look was ok, but didn’t grab my attention.

Option 2:

I saw a zigzag border that someone made and tried that with my fabrics. This option looked more cohesive to me. 

Option 3:

Just to see if another configuration would be better, I tried alternating chevrons. This wasn’t terrible and created a lot of movement, but I thought it was a little confusing for the viewer.

I went for option 2 and started sewing long rows of Flying Geese together.

I had to stop chunking when I realized I had to fix a couple of block mistakes in Lupine. I fixed those quickly and got back to chunking, which is easier than putting a quilt together in rows, but still tedious. It seemed to take me forever. Finally, I got all of the blocks together! Yay!

I was worried about the density of the dots in some of the black background, but looking at the quilt in the photo, I think it looks ok. I can see a couple of places where the dots are really dense, but the background pieces don’t make the blocks look wrong. 

After the blocks were together I put the spacer border on. Also, tedious, but necessary. 

I really like that Melody Miller Carousel blue. I am glad I bought more of it so I have enough for the borders.

Now I am on to the Flying Geese border. 

I noticed that Bonnie has taken down the directions on her blog for this quilt. I almost had a heart attack when I clicked on the link to look at the border directions and it was broken. Fortunately, I had saved the PDFs.

It’s a dreary day here as I write this. We are waiting for rain which seems poised to pour down any minute, but hasn’t gotten around to it yet. This means that my workroom is a little dark and grey. It makes me really happy that the life-sucking beige is gone.

I ripped them out while I watched TV one night and then re-sewed at them at a Sew Day I had with SueS, Lee Ann and SueG. I spent a bit of time over a couple of days doing random quilt tasks and this was one of them. 

Now I am ready to continue chunking the center of the quilt.

I slowly worked on chunking the Lupine top together. I had to do it before putting on the border, because Bonnie has us put on spacer border, which prevents me from chunking the border. C’est la vie.

As I was working away I saw one block where I put the corners on wrong. The purple needs to be on the outside. 

🙁

I looked at the blocks on the design wall for awhile to decide if I could stand the mistake and decided it had to come out. I ripped out the corners, flipped them and re-sewed them.

Yay! No problem. Stuff happens. I was done and could move on.

Then I noticed another one. And another. 🙁 I have indicated the wrong blocks with arrows, but you’ll have to make the image (right) larger to see the arrows.

Now I have all the blocks that are wrong unsewn from the chunks. Next step: rip out the corners and re-sew them. 

I fixed one block and it looks fine.

It’s a process, right?

 

Finishing the Pandora Charisma was great! It freed me up to work on other projects. I made my BAM BOM units, worked on the last Four Patch Fun blocks, made a donation block, got back to my normal leaders and enders system and FINISHED the last of Lupine blocks. YAY!

The quilt isn’t done by any stretch, but this is a huge achievement IMO. I am really pleased about it. Now I get to sew all of these blocks together and then start work on the border.

Happy Valentine’s Day, BTW!

Slowly, but surely Lupine is growing.

In between trying to finish the Pandora Charisma and working on other bits and bobs, I am sewing blocks together as well.  I have about 5 more of each of the blocks to make before I can start on the border. 

This is a really dramatic color scheme and I LOVE it.

I spent most of the day on Sunday making blocks for the Lupine quilt instead of working on the Pandora Charisma. The white strips blocks have been on my mind and I wanted to sew some sashing on to them, so I worked on the Lupine blocks and made the white strip blocks my leaders and enders.

I am quite ready to sew this quilt together. Though I am nearing the end of block making I still have some to sew.

I used piecing the Lupine blocks veg a bit. Now that I know what the two blocks look like I am able to piece them pretty quickly. I mindlessly pieced about nine of them one day when I needed a rest, but also needed to sew.

I know I keep bouncing between the Pandora Charisma project and this project. These are the two that are front and center at the moment.

I have a few bits and bobs still to cut, but I decided I had enough pieces to put a few blocks together. 

“Lupine Alternate block” is kind of a sad name for this great block. The pieces from Clue 7 are so cleverly incorporated into this block. While the pieces were a little fiddly to make, they make the corners so much easier than other methods of construction. Also, using the Simply Folded Corners ruler** makes the cutting and sewing easy peasy.

I thought I would just make one to see where I was doing, but like the Potato Chip blocks, I couldn’t make just one.  

Once I saw two of the alternate blocks together, I had to make some of the Lupine Star blocks. I had cut the center strips with the last of the Melody Miller Carousel blue,  so I made a couple of blocks from what I had. 

I had decided that I wanted to use more of that fabric, so I went looking for some and found a couple of yards at the Bloomerie. The fabric was in the washer as I was making some of the alternate blocks.

The pink I used in this one is darker than the pink I used in the alternate block above. I was a little concerned about that, but once I had a few of both blocks sewed together, I thought the variation was fine. 

I used only a few fabrics and am trying to vary which are sewed to which others. It won’t be 100% possible since this isn’t as scrappy as Old Town, for example. However, I think the block combination is looking good so far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

N.B. Bonnie will remove the posts to which I have linked from her blog sometime in February 2026. Download or save the clues now if you want to make this quilt.

 

 

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