And now I’m working on my own English Paper Piecing project. 🙂 I was just so in awe of the projects at the museum, and although I’m not doing tiny pieces – just 2″ hexagons, which are actually bigger than the size of my palm. I like the idea of an on-going project that uses up scraps over time, truly a quilt of projects past. I have a bunch of scraps that I want to get rid of, so I’m also hoping this will help me with that.
I also have a habit of getting places very early, so I’m thinking this could be my “I’m waiting in the car” project or “I’m on the train” project, stuff like that. It’s definitely very satisfying to put together and I’m surprised at how fast it goes!
I bought a pack of 50 precut cards to start. It took me about an hour to rough cut and glue 50 hexagons to their cards, and the cards are reusable so I’ll just add more hexagons as I pull them out. I’m not concerned with fabric placement as long as no fabric touches another of the same, so it’ll be scrappy and wild and random!! I love the idea of not over-designing this like I usually do and just letting it happen.
Little stitches!! Just grabbing a couple threads on each pass. I’m thinking of using some variegated thread because you do see some thread on the front, and I think it would be fun to have that little rainbow.Progress after about 2 hours.One week later – keys for scale and previous picture outlined. I started cutting up excess blocks too, hence the multiple fabrics in one hexagon off to the left. It’s been super enjoyable. I had a doctor’s appointment and since I had something fun to do, I didn’t even care that I had to wait. I find myself spending less time scrolling on my phone too which is nice. I did order more cards because you have to keep the cards in until all six sides are sewn, so more and more cards have to stay in as the perimeter grows.
My upcoming project list includes: quilt made out of ties, red and white skirt, turtle applique, embroidered and pieced Hawaiian fish, memory quilt, mountain panel, jacket repair, blazer… I’ve got a lot in my queue so keep an eye out 🙂
I went to the museum again! Their exhibition was all English paper pieced quilts, which are pieced by hand. Traditionally, only hexagons are used: a paper hexagon is cut out, the fabric is wrapped around it and basted (or glued), then each hexagon is sewn to the others. Mostly the older ones are cute flower designs, with the modern ones (as you’ll see below) branching out into all different directions with more shapes and sizes. The paper template (we use cardstock now because it’s reusable) helps all the seams to be perfect and sharp, and then the paper is removed before quilting.
I have great respect for the people who make these large scale hand pieced quilts! Now that I have a sewing machine, hand sewing is extremely low on my priority and desire list, and I can’t even imagine the work and time (and stabbed fingers, probably) necessary to get quilts like these finished. I’ve heard that people like to work on EPP on road trips or plane rides, which makes a ton of sense. Also, just the sheer organizational nightmare putting this together must be – all those tiny pieces! I suppose it would be a great way to get rid of tiny scraps – they make hexagon templates down to 1/4″ on each side.
Below is G’Ma’s English Garden by Beverly Miller, it’s a full grid of hexagons, but the center of each flower or star is a different color. This layout is not super interesting at first glance, but the quilting truly makes this quilt pop. The wavy lines give so much movement and texture, and take this colorful quilt to the next level. I also love the embroidered details on the top and bottom rows.
Long wavy lines and some pebbles in the quilting; here you can see the hexagons that have been pieced together (by hand, remember)
This next quilt, Sentimental Journey by Bonnie Offerle, features trapezoidal pieces instead of hexagons! I love the explosive star-like effect this creates, and she topped it off with swirly quilting.
Take a look at the trapezoidal pieces but also – she took 21 years to make this!! A great lesson to us all that you don’t have to finish things on anyone’s timeline but your own.
Subterranean Trove by Karen Fisher, below, totally captivated me. I love the bright colors, the fabrics are so bold and unique. It isn’t a squared up quilt, it has an organic shape. Even the hexagons aren’t perfect, some are tallish, some are fatter, but they all fit together. It’s so cool that the border is just as bright and bold as the “main body” of the quilt, I like that it is just as visually important. Each of the gems has many different fabrics that showcase the crystalline faces, and the quilting highlights every gem so much. The gems pop out of the texture because Karen used the trapunto technique to stuff each gem with more batting than the areas around it, plus she quilted those great lines that radiate from the gems to squish that batting down.
I spent a while with this quilt and met some other nice quilters in the process! We were all kind of drawn to the irregularities in this quilt together with the really fun crystals (especially the heart at the top!). One of the women suspected each of the gems might be based on a real mineral, but we were hard pressed to guess any other than the bluish quartz crystal towards the center right (and below).
Detail for the trapunto! Loved the texture so much.
And finally, my favorite quilt of the exhibition – chaotic, wild, striped, and so, so bold: La Passacaglia Unravels by Randa Mulford. She writes that this was her first time doing English Paper Piecing, and she produced a truly incredible result. Passacaglia quilts are EPP in a circular design, using hexagons, triangles, parallelograms, and other shapes to make a symmetrical sort of radial design.
I love how she used striped fabric in such a brave way – it’s so much detail for the eye, but it really adds to the explosive “unraveling” or firework effect. We use the term “fussy cutting” to explain that she cut out her tiny pieces in very specific parts of the fabric, she didn’t just cut a row and divide it into pieces like we usually do. She targeted specific elements of the fabric design to include. This adds a ton of time while you’re cutting things out, as you have to cut each piece by itself instead of subdividing strips.
Yes, I’m telling you that she had to cut out each of those cute swirly pentagons by finding that element in the fabric and cutting the tiny pentagon out. Then she hand sewed each pentagon to each triangle, to each diamond…. and on and on…. 🙂
This year I did a bunch of little pillow projects for my friends and family 🙂 I got to learn some different techniques like fusible applique and paper piecing. I used lots of different fat quarters from Joann and scraps from previous projects. I generally used envelope backs and a little label to keep them closed. I stuffed them with some extra stuffing I had from pillows I’d bought previously, unfortunately none of them finished at a normal pillow form size.
This was my capstone project of 2019, and it turned out so well! I ended up doing all of the work on it in the last week before Christmas which was a bit stressful but it came together and I was proud to give it to my extended family 🙂
I used the Holiday Pinwheel pattern from MSQC, but adapted it to just be one column of eight pinwheels. I liked using some paper piecing to make the tiny HSTs, it made cutting fabric much easier. I used four different green fabrics and this wonderful sparkly cream/white background. The blocks came together pretty easily, the inner border with the “holly berry” mini pinwheels took a couple tries to get right (I didn’t understand the instructions so I just did it by measuring) but it ended up great!
Finished top before basting (featuring the tiny demon)
I did stitch in the ditch quilting for all of the runner and used a pretty thin cotton batting. Since I know a lot of dishes and stuff had to sit on it, I didn’t want it to be so puffy or too textured. It’s also fully machine washable so it’s all good. In its first machine wash, a couple inches of seams came apart (the sparkly fabric probably needed a full 1/4 inch seam allowance, if not more) so I had to do some hand-sewing repairs, but was ready by the time it was needed 🙂
Christmas Eve dinner, our traditional big mealWith pierogies!Christmas Day breakfast 🙂
All in all I was so happy to make something for my family to use and gather around 🙂
Finch's Creative Endeavors 