Saturday 30 July 2016

EPP progress

Thank you everyone for all the offers to come and teach English Paper Piecing (EPP) where you live.  Maybe I'll plan a world tour for about 5 years time when I've got more than just EPP to teach! ha ha. Some of you are no reply bloggers, so I can't reply to you personally, but I do read all the comments.

My classes got underway and we had a lot of fun at the first lesson.  I retrieved the other section of my Inner City quilt from the shop window, and now it looks like this:


I'm going to square it off now by adding some filler pieces, and then add these borders I found in my stash.  This small quilt will have been made entirely from my stash (and my mum's). No shopping required.


I also worked on my Sue Spargo instastitch blocks this week.  I learnt to do Trellis stitch, which was interesting.  This is my third attempt below.  I ripped out the first one, kept the second one, and feel happy with the third one.  This is 1.25" diameter and took 3 hours!!  I used Sue Spargo's eleganza thread once I knew I could do the stitch.  It does take a lot of thread.



The best news of the week is that I am very nearly finished my la passacaglia quilt.  I finished the hand quilting yesterday, and started putting on the binding.  It was hard to sew black binding onto a black border on an overcast day, so I'm going to try again today now that the sun is out.



Finally, I've just been for a walk and saw that our banksia tree is flowering. The council planted these trees on the berm / verge  (nature strip if you're in Australia) and this is the first time it's flowered.  The birds and bees will love these big flowers.  You can read about this Australian native here.  It's named after the explorer Sir Joseph Banks who also came to New Zealand on his journeys.



7 comments:

Karen - Quilts...etc. said...

I have a craftsy class with Sue and she showed that stitch - I haven't made it yet as I haven't finished the class, I wanted to watch the class first and then go back and practice.

Sophie Zaugg said...

I'm glad to know your Passacaglia quilt will be finished on time ! Please plan a stop here in Switzerland on your world tour teaching ;-)

margaret said...

how 3 dimensional the EPP looks a great job. Embroidery looks good too and as for the La passacaglia well amazing and so nearly completed you must be thrilled with it. Tree looks interesting nothing so exotic here in the UK. Certainly worth waiting for it to flower

Tawa said...

Hi Wendy. After glue basting two rows of the quilt, I started sewing up one block. I then discovered I had glue basted too tightly. So, I un-glue basted my blocks, and stitched one set to see if thread basting gives me a better result. I also looked up a few alternative stitching techniques, just in case its my lousy stitching was at fault. Hopefully by wednesday I will have a few stitched together, but probably not much more than that. This pupil will not be finished by the end of the lessons in two weeks time! See you wednesday.
Cheers,
Tarnia

Wendy said...

That EPP pattern looks amazing, it looks so 3d. Beautiful stitching too.

Rochelle aka Bella Quilts said...

What beautiful pieces. I love the inner city but the La Passacaglia is my favorite. I am assuming that 1.25" piece of stitching is hand embroidery of a sort. It is lovely. Your practice has certainly been worthwhile. Love to see your progress.

Granny Maud's Girl said...

You have had a productive time!
I wonder if I will learn a stitch as complicated as that in my first embroidery class. I am officially signed up now.