Slowly Does It

More progress on the disappearing Four Patch.

After I messed up my rows, I had to re-do some of my blocks which slowed me right down. I am glad though that I did persist with my original layout...this is exactly how I wanted it to look. Actually not that easy to get that organised 'thrown together' scrappy look where the colour distribution is just right. And while this might sound a bit obsessive, for me there is nothing worse than finishing a quilt with that sinking feeling of ...gee, I wish I had done this differently after months of working on it.

It turned out beautiful

This is the continuation of the borders that I will work on today. Again, the distribution of colour around it was a bit of trial and error to get it right. I design my quilts in EQ7 and while I had the body of the quilt all worked out in the program, for those surrounding strips I actually had to lay them out on the floor to see how this all interacts.

 

There will be another black border to finish it off. The effect I was going for was for the viewer to be instantly drawn to the fabric (as this is my very special fabric, that was so special it had not been touched for some years). I think that I might have achieved this. So far, my family has commented more on the fabric than the actual piecing of it all.

As for the quilting...at the moment I am thinking of meandering all over it but, who knows, this might change in a couple of days...

Linking up to Anything Goes Linky Party at Stitch by Stitch.

Karin

Not much progress

I have been working merrily away on my latest project-Disappearing Four Patch quilt. Now, this has appeared easy enough ... WRONG!

This is how far I've got

Yes, that's right...only one row more than I had last time. The last two rows were completed but to my absolute horror, my little system of how I was going to place the colours and match this up with the ironing of the seams did not match. Each row starts with either the seams ironed in or out and all of a sudden I was left with what appeared to be an additional row of the same way of ironing. That, of course threw out my whole organisation.

I must have been confused when I laid it out. Over the weekend then I tried to re-organise the blocks...however, this did not work as I then had the colours all in the wrong spot, like all the red in one corner and blocks of the same fabric next to each other. In the end I decided to take a deep breath and approach it in a more considered way. Back to my original plan...I am now re-doing 3 blocks as the way they are ironed it is not a simple matter of re-ironing them the other way...they actually would have to be taken apart, re-ironed and then put back together. It was easier to just re-do them, I thought. I did it with one the blocks (undoing and then re-pressing), and that turned out alright, but it is quite finicky...

Can't believe...on the last two rows. On the plus side, I bought a country-type black border fabric and have a clear idea on how to finish it. By the end I will have used up every scrap of each of the Fat Quarters that I had and it will look great. Just a matter of getting there.

Also, if you followed my posts about this quilt you would have seen earlier my struggle with the intersecting seams...thought I show you a photo of the pinning down of the seams...I pin from the top and the bottom, so to speak. Normally I would have less pins, but given the trouble I had earlier I want to make sure that absolutely nothing moves.

 

 This gives me really crisp intersections

Linking up to Anything Goes Linky Party at Stitch by Stitch

Karin

Blasted Intersections

Sharing a bit of frustration today. I am in the midst of assembling my Disappearing Four Patch quilt started last month (or was it the month before).

This is a carefully planned scrappy type of quilt, made with some country fabric that I had in my stash. Block construction was alright, however due to the middle sections being ironed open I have had some hassles getting things to line up properly at times. The intersecting seams tended to slip just slightly over now and again which in this pattern becomes very noticeable. So, lots of pinning which slowed me right down.

I have finished 42 blocks now and this morning was looking forward to putting it all together. I love this part when it all comes together. For some reason I did not think about that the same seams would have to be met at the top/bottom and sides. So, assembly has been slow going with several seams having to be re-done...very frustrating.

First 2 rows...

 

 

Next few rows I did in about half an hour...go figure!

 

 



3 more rows to go...this is indeed a sneaky little block. While quite easy and straightforward to construct, accuracy really is a must with this. Very deceptive.

Finally, I made it on a Tuesday to link up to Freemotion by the River

Karin

Piecing Galore

Continuing on my many WIPs in my sewing room...next on the list is the Disappearing Four Patch quilt.

While the Four Patch block is quite easy to construct, it took me a while to work out the pressing of the seams. As it is a one block quilt, one should have thought that this is quite easy, but it took a few trials (more orphan blocks) to get it right as the blocks have to match up in a light/dark fashion so each alternate block has to be pressed in a way that the seams interlock across as well as down.

In the end I worked out my colour distribution (this will be an organised scrappy quilt as I selected a narrow range of my favourite country fabrics) and started on one half of the blocks pressed in one way. Managed to finish those 21 blocks yesterday...

 

Going about it in this organised way helped me to get less confused about the different fabrics and the pressing of the seams. I got on a roll and was able to chain-piece my units which sped up the process enormously. Actually got into a bit of a competition with myself of how much I was able to match my intersecting seams correctly when piecing the segments of the 21 blocks. Needless to say, some days were better than others...yesterday I ploughed through about 10 blocks and hardly had any mismatching seams...yah, this does not happen too often!

Chain piecing the Four Patch Units



A mountain of Four Patch halves building up behind the machine

 



Ready to snip the units apart



The completed units

 Only about 19 blocks to go of the other lot...this should look good when completed. I am planning to give this quilt to one of the magazines, so am on a bit of a schedule.

After this I am planning to continue with my FMQ. Finally gave up on my idea to drive to the Quilt shop in the city for my thread and ordered it over the internet. Will be interesting to see how I went with choosing the right colours...also am itching to do another FMQ sampler similar to the one that I did last year when participating in Leah Day's Wednesday Quilt Along...idea after idea...

Linking up to Anything Goes Linky Party at Stitch by Stitch

Until next time

Karin

Another Country Quilt

Feel in the mood for a country type quilt and have been playing around with my EQ7 program designing all sorts of things...

Settled on the Disappearing Four Patch...quick to construct and interesting to look at and lends itself well to a scrappy type quilt. Country fabric will not be an issue as I have tons of it (and more)...in addition, some time ago I won 20 fat quarters of country fabric in a block competition with one of the magazines over here (Inspiring Country Thread). The fabric is really beautiful but so far I have not used it for anything. Definitely time to cut into it...

The internet is a great resource...did not take me long to find a number of tutorials on how to quickly construct this block.

Here are just a few of the sites that I looked at:

Chock-A-Block Quilt Blocks (ending up with a 12 1/2"block)
SewWonderful (8 1/2"block) and
What comes next? (Disappearing Four Patch with a twist - very cool)




And here is my test block

Perfect...I used 5" squares as my starting point and arrived at a block size of exactly 8 1/2". Went  together pretty quickly...I reckon the best way to go about this is to sew up all of the Four Patch units first and then proceed to cut them to make the Disappearing Four Patch units one by one.

The quilt I am planning will look something like this:

42 blocks in total...with a border of 6" this would come to 61" x 69".  Have not quite decided on the border as yet as this will depend a bit of what I find when I go through my stash, but overall I like the look of this. Yep, can't get away from it...I love those simple, repetitive arrangements.

Linking up to Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop Week 8 and Link Up over at Plum and June and Anything Goes Linky Party at Stitch by Stitch

Karin