English Paper Piecing

Well… This didn’t quite go as I planned.

I notoriously don’t like hand stitching, have never tried hand quilting and sew on binding with my machine (both sides). I’ve seen some beautiful English paper piecing. One of my recent inspiration cards also got me thinking about paper piecing to actually make this vision into reality.

All of triangles seemed like a nightmare with traditional piecing. So between that and thinking that it would be nice to have something to do on long car rides, I decided to try it out.

I purchased diamonds so I could turn the picture above into fabric. The size made it easy to use scraps. This is probably the first scrappy project where I’ve actually used scraps instead of buying fabric to create a scrappy look.

I’ve had some easy successes. First being that I liked it more than I thought I would. Second is that it has been pretty quick to make the diamonds. Last has been having enough scraps to make diamonds in sets.

Here are two of the stars I’ve made to date.

The biggest challenge is that the points of the diamonds are harder to baste/tack than the sides of the diamonds. I imagine this isn’t an issue on hexagons (which seems to be the most common shape for English paper piecing). I’ve been using two stitches to hold down the points.

The other challenge is aligning the diamonds when stitching them together so that there aren’t gaps between the diamonds. I’m not sure I was so successful here.

Here is what I’ve created so far to match my inspiration card. Now I have to figure out the next step. How do I get this attached to something bigger?

Inspirational Cards

Every couple months, my husband and I drive for 6 hours from Ohio to Virginia to visit family. Or really, my husband drives and I sit in the passenger seat. While I could say I’m the navigator, once I put the address in the GPS I don’t have to do any navigation. I am responsible for snack time and for choosing the next podcast or loading the next CD for the audio book. That still leaves me with 5.5 hours of free time on my hands.

Earlier this year, I brought along some blank card stock and pens to entertain myself. I have previously spent the time sketching out quilt patterns on previous trips. This time, I decided to create inspirational cards to leave anonymously for people. It seemed like a simple project that would bring me joy (in creating the cards and in choosing where to leave them) and hopefully bring others joy when they find the cards.

Here are four of the cards I created.

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Here is one that has inspired my next project on the road (for a future blog post).

This is one left on a truck at a rest stop.

#inspiration

Machine Quilting Breakthrough

I have wanted to get comfortable with machine quilting. My earliest quilts I secured with ties with embroidery floss or invisible stitches (stitch in the ditch but just in short 1″ lengths).

Then for at least 4 quilts I created, I had someone else quilt them. The results were beautiful like on this Summer Star Quilt. In working with the quilter, we talked about the vision and I love the mix of modern styles and more traditional styles.

[Quilting credit goes to Ewe Tree Quilting]

I walked away happy with the work from these other quilters but wanting to own the whole process of the quilt. So, I started out to learn how to quilt on my sewing machine. I started with a Harriet Hargrave book on machine quilting. It provided a lot of good information on techniques, tools, and troubleshooting. The next step was application and practice.

I took to practicing on a sampler quilt and smaller sandwiches.

My early machine quilting on actual quilts was rudimentary and uneven. I have even deferred to just straight line quilting since it was simpler.

My first large quilt, the Metroparks for Jeff quilt, had stitch in the ditch and localized quilting.

I received some tips at the Glamp Stitchalot 2016 on quilting. Some of the quilting tips were:

• to keep practicing (of course)
• to hold the quilt from underneath (at least on the left side) which allows you to better guide the quilt without pushing with your shoulders
• to start quilting with the area to be quilted on the other side of the machine so you are pulling the quilt towards you rather than pushing it through the machine

On one of my current quilts, I had done some moderate quilting but felt like I needed more.

So, I decided to do a square fill pattern around the lion. I did a quick test run and then started on the actual quilt. It just seemed to work. It took a bit to fill the space but the volume of quilting and the overlap minimized the spots where I had longer or shorter stitches. I am so happy with the results.

It inspired me to quilt in the sky with a more flowing fill. Again, after a quick test to figure out which pattern I wanted to go for, the quilting on the actual quilt came together quickly.

Practice makes better. (I know the expression is practice makes perfect but I’m not at perfect yet!)

[I am not paid to endorse any of the other services or people linked in this blog post.]

Quilts at The Henry Ford

For the 4th of July weekend, I traveled from Cleveland to Dearborn, Michigan to visit The Henry Ford. The first day, we spent in the museum looking through the endless examples of innovation. There were many highlights of the museum. I enjoyed walking through the Dymaxion House and thinking about what it would be like to live in one. It was surreal to sit in the same seat as Rosa Parks on the bus where the seat on the Rosa Parks bus that started the Montgomery bus boycott and the Civil Rights Movement. With a mechanical engineering background, it was amazing to see the Corliss Steam Engine demonstration. Once the 157 year old engine was started, it was very quiet and the enormous wheel turned quickly but only at 1/10th of it’s maximum speed. The Driving America exhibit did a great job of documenting the evolution of cars, from Henry Ford’s quadricycle to the Prius! I always keep my eye out for quilts but didn’t see any in the museum.

Our next day was spent at the Greenfield Village (also part of The Henry Ford). The village is enormous and has numerous important historical buildings (or recreations). One section of the village is the Liberty Craftworks which demonstrates historical methods for creating goods. I loved the tile murals they had depicting some of the trades. I always look at 2-dimensional art as inspiration for quilts.

I did discover a couple quilting related items in Greenfield Village. The first was the fabric section at the General Store from 1857. They certainly didn’t have quite as many choices as we have now.

I saw two more quilts in the Sarah Jordan Boarding House. This house was located in Menlo Park, NJ near Thomas Edison’s labs. It was the first private home wired with electricity. Here are the two quilts that were in 2 different boarders rooms.

In George Washington Carver’s cabin, was the 3rd quilt I found.

I enjoy looking at traditional blocks and reusing them with modern colors or incorporated in more modern designs. One piece of quilting that I continue to revel in is that you can change the colors, the contrast and the white space to create such different impacts for 1 block pattern. In the original quilt, some of the blocks are more scrappy and some change the white space. For the block variations I drew up, I focused on a fading effect moving the same color hue from darker in the center to lighter at the edges as well as flipping the white space.

Preliminary sketch to layout out colors and understand the block composition

Cleaned up drawing of the blocks

 

*I was not paid by The Henry Ford for this post. I truly enjoyed my experience and wanted to share. I would highly recommend visiting.

Kitenge – Fabric from Africa

I enjoy traveling and a personal goal is to travel to a new country every year. I like trying out new food, getting away, and experiencing a sliver of life in another country. I some cases I also end up shopping for fabric. One of my favorite memories is shopping for saris in India on a trip in 2007. I was in Chennai with some of my sorority sisters for a wedding. The sari shop was a multi-floor store with floor to ceiling shelves around the entire room. A counter ran all the way around the store. We sat at the counter and pointed at different saris we wanted to see. It was amazing because the color combinations and woven patterns on every sari were different. The shop attendant would (magically) grab two corners of the folded sari, pull and snap the sari open. It would then drift down to the counter for us to admire the detail. I walked away with a beautiful orange and green sari that I wore to the wedding and have worn since we got back.

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More recently, my younger sister had been living in Kenya doing work in Water and Sanitation. She got into quilting earlier than I did and helped me in the beginning. One of the things she discovered in her work and travel in Africa is the kitenge fabric. It is popular in East Africa and is created using the batik technique. They have patterns that range in size from small and dense to large and graphic. Similar to the saris in India, every kitenge that I’ve seen uses different colors and patterns. I was lucky that my sister started collecting this especially on her trips to Nigeria where the selection seemed to be more diverse. I was quite happy when I got a box FULL of kitenge fabric for my birthday. I also received kitenge for Christmas and when we made it out to see her in Kenya last July. I have at least 20 different kinds of fabric ranging from 2 to 6 yards. It is enough to last a lifetime. I’ve included below a small selection of the fabric.

Zebra kitenge that I bought in Kenya

Bold, big pattern kitenge

Smaller, two color pattern (each circle is 1.5″ across)

Orange, navy and yellow kitenge (I enjoy the mix of geometric and organic elements)

Bigger pattern in teal and navy

One of my favorite patterns (with gold flecks that don’t show up here)

So, the challenge becomes what to do with this fabric, especially because of the big patterns. Most of the quilts I design or create have smaller pieces and I worried that it would lose the impact of the pattern. I decided to design an applique pattern with ladies to show off the patterns and put them into a snowball block. I’ve created a sample lady with other fabric. Here is the first one.

I’ve now created 18 other ladies using the kitenge fabric. I’m working on cutting out the background fabric and all the strips for the snowball blocks surrounding the ladies. I’ll show pictures as I make more progress.

Paper Pieced Feather – Part II

Last week I showed the first part of the process. This week, I’ll show the next steps from here. After the testing pieces, I continued by using the straight edge to draw all of the stitch lines onto the paper.

I cut apart the pattern and noted the order to sew them back together.

Then I measured all of the pieces in each block. To do this, I measured the size within the drawn lines (blue) and then added .5 inches in both directions for seam allowance (green). I rounded up to the nearest quarter inch to make cutting easier.

I took all of these measurements and entered them into Excel. This allowed me to use Pivot Tables to determine the lengths of fabric that I needed to cut for each width. (F stands for feather fabric, S for stem fabric, and B for background fabric.)

I used these totals to cut out all of my fabric. I first cut into strips (from the Pivot Table) and then into the smaller sizes.

Next was assembly of the pieces. When I sew for paper piecing, I like to chain piece. I normally group pieces that have the same number of seams/stitches. Here is the set of pieces that all had 3 components with 2 seams total.

First Seam – Paper Side

First Seam – Fabric Side

Seams Trimmed

First seam ironed

All pieces sewn and ironed

Final trimmed pieces

I continued the process with the other pieces. Next was assembly. I laid them out with the paper up to ensure I sewed them together correctly.

Here is the final result!

Contact me through the Contact page if you’d like the pattern.

 

 

 

Paper Pieced Feather – Part I

Recently, I saw a dreamcatcher in someone’s window. It reminded me of the couple years I lived in New Mexico. It also got me thinking about making a dreamcatcher quilt. I decided to start with just a feather.

I first did some quick sketching. This drawing is only about 3 inches tall.

Next, I drew the feather bigger to fit on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. I sketched this free form with a pencil.

Then, I used a straight edge to divide up the feather drawing into sections. These sections should correspond to the individual parts of the pattern needed.

I used my light box to trace the feather sections onto paper piecing paper. (It is a lighter weight paper.)

 

Before I kept going with drawing the pattern, I wanted to test out the pattern pieces. Here are the sample pieces and the results.

 

I was happy with the test pieces and then moved forward with creating the whole feather. I’ll show the rest of the process next week. See you then!

Lessons from Glamp Stitchalot 2016

 

I was lucky enough to attend Glamp Stitchalot in Ann Arbor last weekend. The event was put on by Pink Castle Fabrics and included 6 great instructors. I wanted to share the key lessons I took away from the weekend.

• Curved piecing
  • I completed my first curved piecing based on the class from Violet Craft.
  • We used templates to cut the two curved pieces.
  • It was surprisingly simple. Three pins, a scant 1/8″ seam, and pulling the fabric outward as you sew.

• Fussy cutting prints
  • I was familiar with the idea of fussy cutting prints to feature or center an image from the fabric.
  • The new concept around fussy cutting (from Elizabeth Hartman) was to fussy cut prints so that the pattern will match or flow across a block. This minimizes the disruption of the seams in the overall block.
  • Here is an example with the orange fabric in the block designed by Rashida Coleman-Hale.

• Different paper piecing techniques
  • It was great to get tips from the different instructors on paper piecing.
  • Don’t include a paper border around the outside. Penny Layman cuts the paper to the final size. Then when the block is all sewn together, trim the block with the 1/4″ seam. Here are two of the blocks from Penny’s row. I loved the mountain more than I thought I would. (Plus check out the fussy cutting on the mountain!)

• Include the paper border around the outside but tear that paper when you sew blocks together. Carolyn Friedlander uses this technique so that she doesn’t have small amounts of paper to tear. Here are the two parts of the rows that Carolyn designed. I love how they look but not together. 

I had a wonderful time quilting, spending time with friends and meeting new people. It has inspired me to start this blog and join Instagram. Check me out here.