WIP #1- The Colour Adventure

WIP #1:

Late last week: Making good progress. Blocks are finished and ready to sewn together:

I was unsure whether to leave the paper in when I was sewing it together, however trialling this I found that this was too tricky in terms of getting the points to meet. So, I took part of the paper out as I went along. This worked fine, however, steep learning curve here...I should have secured my thread when sewing on the lines of the foundation and actually also used a smaller stitch length (I used stitch length 2, I think I should have done 1.5).

So, removing the paper was like walking on egg shells...I had to be super careful not to rip my stiches out. Had some very tense moments there, but got through it. Must say, I do not like working with paper foundations and have found a new sense of admiration for people who piece entire bed quilts like this. On a positive note, the pressing of the seams was not nearly as difficult as I originally thought.

Well, this is how far I got this week...Funny, I thought I had it all planned out in terms of what this was going to look like,  but then things change. Overall I was not a 100% happy with it as the merging points are fairly bulky (even after trimming them a bit)  and will make FMQ over it very tricky. Also made the points a bit wonky. Colour wise a solid black border would have probably been better but once the purple border was on I did not want to take it off again due to the fragile nature of the seams. The purple border idea followed my thinking that I would just use this as a FMQ project and for that reason wanted a 2" border to put a swirly design in there. Decided to just finish it off and be done with it. I will probably put a mix of colours around as the binding. The photo does not really do it justice...in real life it is very intense to look at...probably one of the more unsettling quilts I have done. Still trying to work out whether I like it or not.

However I am getting a bit excited about the next stage...FMQ. Almost having withdrawal symptoms as I have not FMQ for the entire month. Can't wait...have definite ideas for this one which no doubt will change as I go along...like I said at the beginning...this should be interesting.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced to have a look what others are up to.

Until next time

Karin

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

WIP No 1: On-going Adventure Quilt

Working away on my foundation-pieced colour quilt. Colour placement is actually much harder than I thought...without fail I produced blocks that presented a bit of a thorn to my eyes when placed in their position...too much of one colour in one spot or the arrangement itself is not to my liking.

Anyway, I am getting there. I think this will be just a wall hanging. The array of colours is just a bit overwhelming and I decided that I would like the colour wheel section in the middle to be the centre of attention. If I continue with the quilt in scrap fashion as I originally envisaged, I think I will loose the whole point of this. As you can see I am definitely overthinking this...

The border will be black to make those colours really stand out but also to do some FMQ in light thread all over it. Really looking forward to this. Actually having some withdrawal symptoms as I have not done any FMQ for a few weeks and am in need of a finish so I can set up my machine for FMQ.

WIP No 2 : Scrappy Spider Web Quilt

This originated from my by now UFO project, that actually had not really taken off from last year. I started my second string quilt early 2012 to get rid of my scraps and had all good intentions to continue this throughout the year to be ready for Christmas. Well, that just did not happen...

As I have done a string quilt before, I felt the need for something a bit different but still easy enough to just have going on the side for those times when one does not feel for anything too complex. I have always liked the spider web quilts and decided to start on this. In terms of construction I considered the way that it was shown on the Craftsy BOM last year, but decided in the end to produce a template for the kite shape to cut down on the measuring (yep, I am a bit of a lazy quilter). I used Muslin as the foundation, so all I had to do was to place my kite shape over the triangle, draw two lines and off I went...worked very well and gave me adequate accuracy. Having completed a block I am now considering whether this will be too heavy...the muslin adds a fair bit of weight and bulk to the block.  Alternatively, I could cut out the muslin kite shape using my little template and use the thin interfacing that I normally use for string piecing. I definitely do not want to use paper...I want this to be a project on the side, where you can just sit and add strips without much thinking.

Has anybody used the Muslin as a foundation ? Be interested to hear about the weight issue.

PS. Yep, tried the interfacing and it cuts down the weight/bulk by half, I reckon...will demonstrate next time.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Until next time

Karin

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

I am linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Lee's at freshly pieced. This is the first time I am linking up...looks like good fun.






Well, 2013 is here and I am still in the planning stages for the New Year. Have too many ideas and too little time. Will have to make a list.

At the moment I am working on 2 definite projects and another few in my head :)

The first one I started way back...a foundation pieced play with colours. Finally had some time to get cracking on this. Here's a bit of a taste

 

 

Eventually managed to work out the sequence of the foundation. Went through a whole lot of confusion there for a while and kept on producing mirror images...together with sorting out the colours that became a bit of a nightmare. Then I realized that I had forgotten to reverse the image when I printed the block out bigger, so kept looking at the block the right way, but producing a mirror image...duh!!

Not sure what this will become exactly...but am making it with the intention on FMQ feather plumes in the yellow star. Initially I thought that I would then use a filler design in the coloured section, but now I am unsure as there are a lot of seams to travel over. Had not considered this...every project always becomes a bit of an adventure. In fact, I should call this 'The Adventure' as I am also not sure I like the solids in there. However, I promised myself to only use what I have in my overflowing stash container, so I probably will just run with it (ha, ha...note the 'probably' in the sentence).

As you can see this one is still truly in the exploration stage. Should be interesting to see what happens next.

Looking forward to having a bit of a look to see what other quilters have been up to.

Karin

UFO Sunday/WIP- Foundation Piecing

Continued with my 'Sweet Gumleaf' block.

Given I had some distortion with the last block I had sewn (which was probably due to the thin interfacing that I was using as a foundation ), I decided to do the block with paper as the foundation. I also increased the size to 7" as this will allow me a bit more space to quilt in the skinny star that develops when four blocks are placed together.

Well, what a laugh...the block turned out nice and straight and you probably will not realize what went wrong this time. Another one of those 'huh'!!??? moments. I produced a complete  mirror image of the block by obviously placing the fabric on the wrong side of the foundation when sewing it together. Good thing that I have got a lot of patience.

This is how it should look like:


I do spend a lot of time in the planning stages...given that I am going to work on this for a while, I like to make sure that these blocks come together without any major headaches. Once all those little annoying things are ironed out and I have a fair idea of how everything will come together it is then just a matter of doing it and I can then concentrate of speeding up the process by cutting the fabric at once, drawing up foundations in batches of 10 to 20 and so forth. I find that this works really well for me and I rarely have any complications develop during the process. On the other hand, when I sew something that developed  out of a more spontaneous idea the likelihood of it becoming an UFO increases exponentially.

Karin