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.

I'm teaching EPP

Wellington Sewing Centre has a new owner called Jo, and I've agreed to teach some English Paper Piecing (EPP) classes in their revamped teaching space.

Tumbling Colors - all from my stash

My classes start on Wednesday 27 July at 10am, and run for three sessions. There are still spaces available if you'd like to learn some tips and tricks from someone who's done her fair share of EPP.

Inner City

I'll be teaching your choice of Tumbling Colors or Inner City - both patterns by PaperPieces.com.  The good news is you don't have to cut your own papers because they are included with the patterns.

I'm hurriedly trying to whip up some samples to show different ways of combining the fabrics.  Here's where I'm up to:

It's fun seeing the pattern emerge, but I'm going to have to stop somewhere.

And here's some winter colour from my garden.  The camellias, rhododendrons and daphne are all lovely at the moment. Although it's only about 12C (53F) most days, we don't get snow where we live, so the plants continue to flower through the winter.

my Sew Together bag

Last weekend I went to a quilting retreat with our guild.  My good friend Anne offered to teach me how to make a Sew Together bag while we were there.  She's made about 6, so she knows all the ins and outs. Here's what I made:

 

The pattern for the Sew Together bag is by Sew Demented, and is available for purchase on Craftsy.  If you do want to make a bag like this, I highly recommend the tutorial by Quilt Barn on her blog.  There are many extra little steps not mentioned in the pattern, but the tutorial explains them all.

I chose some lovely Tula Pink fabrics for this bag, and mixed them with some other pinks from my stash.

I've got a second bag cut out already, and it will be all Kaffe Fassett fabrics. I'll tackle it another day. My first bag took me about 10 hours, but I did hand sew my bindings down.  I'm hoping that the second one will be slightly quicker.

I didn't think I really needed one of these bags, but now I'm on holiday in Auckland I'm finding it really useful for storing my hand quilting supplies.

It's time to check progress

Do you write to do lists? I do - frequently.  I even wrote one this morning for everything I have to do today - work, supermarket, packing for retreat, etc. Every six months I set goals for my quilting and embroidery.  I find this helps me to keep on task, and get things finished.

30 June has been and gone, so it's time to check how I went against my quilting priorities set at the start of the year.  The original list is here, but I promise to work through it without omitting anything.

1. Mediterranean Hexagons.  This is a quilt I started at the workshop with Kaffe and Brandon at the end of January. It's progressing well and the top should definitely be finished before the end of 2016.  I just purchased the backing for it the other day.  I was tempting to use Kaffe on the back too, but decided to use black instead, and let the front do all the talking.

2. la passacaglia. I'm on the home straight.  The hand quilting is almost finished, and I have the fabric for the binding.  I really need to get it finished it within the next 4 weeks, because Quiltmania magazine are holding a la passacaglia exhibition at the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  They will be showing 20 la passacaglia quilts and I hope mine might be one of them.  I've already entered, but if it is accepted, I need to send it to USA about 18 August.  So I'll be doing lots of hand quilting at our retreat this weekend.

3. My Small World.  I finished it! I dedicated a couple of weeks in January to making this quilt, and it was finished in February.  It's now hanging in the hall and I love it.

4. Possum Magic quilt.  I've started the hand quilting with Aurifil 12wt, and it's looking lovely, but I put it aside to hand quilt la passacaglia first.

5. Women of the Bible quilt.  No action - it's still sitting on the spare bed, probably because I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet. (whoever it was that wanted the pattern - please email directly, or include your email address in a comment.)

6. Spinning Stripes v2.  I finished this one too.  It now sits nicely with my first one.  I'm not sure where I'll display them yet.

7. Oh! Christmas Tree.  I've finished the top, and have the backing. I want to hand quilt this one too, but will finish la passacaglia first.

8. Smitten.  I still haven't started this.  I'm tempted to make it with Tula Pink Elizabeth fabrics, but i don't want to be the same as everyone else.

9. Trip around the World.  I'm sort of going off this idea.  I still like the photo in the book, but I have other things I want to make first.

10. Glitter.  I'm still just admiring other people's version of this quilt.

11. Ballet avec Kaffe Fassett.  This one may well be jumping up the list.  A few members of the Millefiori / la passacaglia facebook group are making this quilt and I love how it looks.  I bought a bag with this quilt on it.  That counts as a small start.

12.  Stack of Colour.  I finished this one too!

13.  Felt quilt.  I haven't started this yet, but I do still think about it a lot.

So, that's all 13 items that were on my list on 1 January. I've finished 3 of them, but also made some other things along the way.  Here they are:

14.  Honeycomb Spin.  Finished. This was a class in April 2016 with Anna Hicks, and uses the Modern Hexies technique of gluing the hexagons onto the background.

15. Table mat.  And a small table mat made with the left over hexagons.

16. Happy Villages. I made a small start on testing out this pattern.  I haven't quilted it yet, but I do want to finish this piece before I try again.

17. I've also made a yellow mini quilt for the Aotearoa Quilters challenge.  After seeing the green quilts in Auckland last year (click here to see them), I vowed to enter a quilt next time, whatever colour was chosen.  My yellow mini isn't stunning, but it's a small start. I might even make another one yet before the challenge closes on 1 September.  I'll post a photo after that date.

a late addition
18. How could I forget my Sue Spargo blocks from #instastitchwithSue on Instagram.  I'm enjoying making these free patterns each month and embellishing them with hand embroidery.

How are you going against your quilting goals for 2016?

Shimmer quilt is finished

Yes - we have a winner from last week's giveaway, and it's Brenda Wiseman from New England, USA. Congratulations Brenda. Thank you for all the entries - I enjoyed reading about all your hexie plans.  It's quite easy to make your own templates if you still want to give it a try. Just google "hexagon templates for English Paper Piecing" and you will find sheets to print off on slightly thicker paper.

Now, onto regular news.
Yay!! I finished a quilt that has been hanging around for a long time.  I do know why I didn't finish it earlier - I didn't have a specific purpose for it, but now I think I do.  We've just purchased a new king single bed and this big quilt will work well on that bed.

I started this quilt back in 2013 after I'd finished my Bordered Peacocks quilt. I was so eager to get the perfect fabrics for the Bordered Peacocks, I ended up buying far more fabrics than I needed.  Sound familiar to anyone?

my Bordered Peacocks

So I thought I could just cut the left over pieced into 2.5" strips and use a jelly roll pattern to make another quilt.  I chose the Stacks of Colour pattern from one of Pam and Nicky Lintott's jelly roll books.

This quilt is quite dark, so I used my Wonderfil Dazzle and threads because they have built in sparkle and give the quilt a little lift.  It's very hard to see the sparkle in photos, but it is there.  I just quilted straight lines down the quilt about 2.5" apart.

the yellow thread is the tacking / basting lines

The border and backing are beautiful prints from Timeless Treasures, designed by Chong-a Hwang.

It's a good feeling to have this quilt finished.
Pattern: Stacks of Colour from Jelly Roll Dreams by Pam and Nicky Lintott 2012
Fabrics: mainly Timeless Treasures
Size: 68" x 88"

It's Giveaway time and it's hexagons

This giveaway is now closed.
True to my promise last week, it's giveaway time for my blog readers this week. I won't even mention this on Instagram, so that will increase your chances of winning.

I really appreciate the online friendships I've developed through blogging.  I now feel that I have friends all over the world.

So what's up for grabs?  These bright happy fabrics chosen especially for this giveaway, PLUS 50 hexagon shapes so you can try your hand at modern hexies.  You don't have to use these fabrics in a modern hexies project, but I would like to see you use the hexie templates - either for a modern hexies project, or traditional English Paper Piecing. Just a warning - some of these paper pieces have been used, but Paper Pieces make them so well that they can be used multiple times.  I always keep mine and recycle them.

Here's a reminder of what I made with just 31 hexies.

To get you started I'm providing a link here to Nicole's tutorial.  She's the expert at this technique, so you may as well learn from her.  The only thing I do slightly differently is create a template and trim my fabrics to hexagon size, plus a seam allowance.

This giveaway is now closed.

Honeycomb spin and flying geese all made with batiks!

Several months ago the lovely people at RJR Fabrics sent me some Jinny Beyer Malam batiks to play with.  I made two quilts from these batiks - Honeycomb spin and a flying geese table runner.

Firstly - Honeycomb spin.
I learnt to made this quilt in a class at Nancy's Stitch Studio in Wellington, New Zealand.  Anna Hicks was the tutor, and we had a great time using the modern hexies technique of wrapping fabric around paper templates to form the shape, and then removing the papers and gluing the hexies to the background fabric.  The spiral quilting was the final step and it secured the hexies to the background.

I deliberately staggered my hexies from dark to light to get the shading effect. The batiks worked really well for this.

the background fabric is Radiant Gradients by Hoffman

If it looks like a lot of hexies, you'd be right. I must have used about 350.

I used King Tut variegated thread for the spiral quilting and love the circles it created.

The back looks pretty good too:

This is an out of print piece by Amelia Caruso - the same artist who designed the border fabric I'm using on my la passacaglia. We turned the edges back and made facings rather than doing a normal binding.

The finished size is 25" x 40".  I'm really pleased with how this quilt turned out, and will hang it on the wall in my house.


Secondly, I made a table runner with some of the leftovers:
I've always loved blues and greens, so I decided to make a blue and green table runner for my hall table.  I didn't really have a pattern, but I knew I wanted to use flying geese.  I only have 2 Bloc-loc flying geese tools - the 1.5" x 3" finished, and the 2" x 4" finished, and I used both of them.

I did a bit of algebra, and worked out that 3 of the big flying geese would be 12" finished, and 4 of the small flying geese would be 12" finished, so I made sets of various colour combinations.

Once the mat was the right size I hand quilted it with Aurifil 28wt and big stitches.

I used some of the leftover pieces on the back, and gave it a random binding, because by then I was running out of blues and greens.

The finished size is 11.5" x 36" and it fits perfectly on my hall table.

RFR Fabrics have kindly agreed to let me give away some Malam batiks to one lucky person on Instagram.  So if you're on Instagram and follow both me and RJR Fabrics, you can enter the competition on Instagram.

I realise not everyone is on Instagram, so I'm going to do a separate giveaway just for blog readers next week.