After that huge push to finish my la passacaglia top, I really needed a change of scenery. The la passacaglia is not totally finished yet, but I'm waiting for more border fabric to arrive from USA. So I packed it all up and pulled the long neglected My Small World.
I was really excited to make this quilt when I started it back in May 2015. I made Part 1 and some of Part 2 and wrote a blog post them here. Then I got a bit disillusioned with it, and put it away. I had two major issues with it. I wasn't 100% convinced about the fabrics I was using, and I was having a lot of difficulties with the accuracy of my piecing.
A lot has changed in the last six months, and I'm trying again, because I do still love the design and really want one hanging on my wall.
I've sorted out the fabric dilemma by collecting more scraps, buying a bundle of small pieces from Amitie, and increasing my colour confidence by working on my la passacaglia. I've also learnt to restrict my fabric selections for a project, and not dig out every bit of fabric I've ever owned. I put out a reasonable selection and make myself choose from those fabrics only. It sort of looks like this:
I've sorted out the accuracy of the piecing by:
1. getting the FREE paper piecing templates from Sarah Bailey of Sew What Sherlock here
2. buying some BlocLoc rulers for Half Square Triangles
3. doing the bulk of the piecing in the daylight, and getting a new Bernina with much better lighting than my 25 year old machine had.
Foundation paper piecing has never really been my thing, but I couldn't have made this quilt with out it. I'm even getting quite good at it now, and hardly have to unpick at all.
I'm now really happy with how my quilt is coming along. I've made great progress over the past 4 days, and now we have a 3 day long weekend. I hope to get all of the bottom half done over the weekend. The sky should be easier because it's just all low volume white, cream and light blue.
If you're working on this quilt and want some additional inspiration and advice, I'd recommend two Australian bloggers I follow:
Susan Snooks of PatchworknPlay
Di from Snippets 'n' Scraps
They've both made beautiful versions of this quilt and inspired me to give it another go.
I need to pack it all up on Monday night and think about my fabrics for my Kaffe Fassett class on Saturday - exciting!!
13 comments:
Oh my, I love how this is coming along. I wanted to do this quilt myself, hunted down the magazine, starting to collect some low volume background, and then found myself very afraid to start. I am encouraged by the paper piecing and by your comments about limiting your scrap piles. Maybe I will pull it out again. Thanks for sharing!
I have not seen too much about this pattern although I have seen several in blog land. You have such a large work table - very lucky!! Looking forward to seeing what you do with it - I have not worked much with foundation piecing and last time I did a lot of ripping!
This is looking beautiful. I could NOT have completed mine without the paper piecing templates. And I really like the addition of your woolen petals--so pretty!
Ooooo. Love it!!! :-)
I am so glad you are feeling better about the project and were able to keep going with it. I'm also happy to see some of the original details are being kept; I love the placement of the text pieces in your first unit. :)
I was lucky to get a copy of this delightful projects and have been collecting fabrics trying to decide how to put my twist onto it.
I'm glad you've gone back to it and enjoying it more, I'm off to check out the links you shared. Thanks.
what a wonderful job you are making of this, it is going to be so spectacular when complete. Know a couple of girls whoa are doing it will be catching up with them next month but they are behind you with theirs, so easy to get distracted with other projects, think we all suffer from that
To be honest; I'm relieved to hear that you had problems to accurately piece all those small blocks because that's exactly my problem too. I got the magazine but put it away as I knew it would be too difficult for me. I'm not good at piecing, that's why I love paper piecing (or hand piecing). I must get those patterns from Sarah Bailey, thanks for the tip. I love how scrappy and colourful your version looks.
Great work on what appears to be quite a challenging ( written) quilt Wendy. Your fabric choices are great.
I LOVE your work space - you lucky girl!!
I saw Susan's version unquilted when we met in Melbourne. It looks like such a fun quilt to make. I love small and fiddly, but I think I need a bit more eclectic and scrappy practice before I commit. :)
Your work on the Pas shows how your color choices have become more rainbow hues, as opposed to duller colors such as repro fabrics. I found out years ago that the two palettes really don't mix well. So now I've officially become a rainbow gal and got rid of all my dull scraps. Your stash full of KF fabrics is the rainbow kind, of course. What is that fabric with lots of tiny blocks, at the top of photo 6, the one with the cutter alongside? It's perfect for the project. Your version is really exciting.
I truly love how your work is looking and I had pondered tackling this but Im not the best when it comes to slicing and dicing, are the patterns all converted to paper piecing from sewwhatsherlock? if so I may be really tempted to tackle this :)
Wendy - I think this is looking lovely and I have seem more of your pictures. I started on block one and tried to be very careful and still my windows did not line up - and I found how the pattern was written a bit difficult to follow - so put it aside. I still work and realised I was just not going to be able to fit it in. Then along came the info about the foundation papers which I have now and am now looking forward to starting it again..not sure when but it is certainly back on my To Do list...(just need to retire!!)
thanks for all the information and gorgeous quilt.
and also very envious of your large table...
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