"When Stars meet Hexagons" and Ann Randoll progress

Well - I really should be machine quilting my 'Simon' quilt but arthritis is being, literally, a pain in the neck at the moment. Sitting at the machine seems to aggravate the neck and shoulder ache, so I will have to wait awhile. 

Ann Randoll quilt :  I completed the hand pieced border around the centre. For some reason it fitted best with only 23 of the 24 diamond sections that are in the pattern - so that is how I joined it! Hand piecing has never been my forte. Unless I use papers I seem to be woefully inaccurate. The end result looks fine so no problem I think...

Pieced border pinned in place

Next to cover the seam with an appliqued bias strip, then trim back the brown background:

Bias strip appliqued over seam

Appliquing to the cream background with another bias strip - and that completes the centre ring: 

Centre ring complete - appliqued to cream background

Next step is a tiny saw tooth border and corner feature - to be appliqued. In the workshop we prepared freezer paper templates for the applique, as this is Rhonda's preferred method. Here they are :

Freezer paper template - decided not to use this method

But...I am not confident in this method,  so I decided to do my saw tooth border by back-basting prep for the applique. Here is the prep done ready to needle turn applique:

Back-basting prep done

I tried a little of the needle turn but am not happy with my thread colour - it showed too much when I used a neutral beige shade. Ideally it needs to be a dark brown to be less visible - which I don't have. Bit of shopping needed ...

"Stars meet Hexagons" - this is the name of a lovely little red quilt in Petra and An's book - 'Promenade in a Dutch Garden'. I saw their quilt at Quilts in the Barn 2013 and absolutely loved it - knew I had to make it sometime. 

Picture of the quilt in the book Promenade in a Dutch Garden

I know I have only just finished an EPP star quilt (my Mary Leggett Star Bouquet repro) and that  classifies me as having a truly sad case of EPP addiction! But some of you will understand?

This time I am using 1" stars, hexagons and triangles. The pieces in the book are 7/8" but I happen to have 1" templates and papers already, so am going that tiny bit larger. 

Just for comparison with my 'M L Star Bouquet' quilt: this new quilt will have smaller pieces, different construction, and a lot more creative variety in fussy cutting. Here is the start of 'Stars meet Hexagons' alongside the 'Star Bouquet'.

It is great to find use for a couple of red Coverlet collection repros. They have been lingering in the stash. I bought them years back because I loved them but then never found the right project. I think they are wonderful for fussy cutting but am going cautiously, mixing them with others, because I'm afraid there is only a very fine line between terrific and tacky in fussy cutting....and am hoping I haven't crossed it!

Two fold mirror reveals all sorts of possibilities

Whoa, reining in !  time for something more subtle.

I'm not using glue for this - just paperclips.

Stitching through the fabric only - so the papers pop out easily for re-use.

Progress so far

I'm stitching the stars and hexagons together as I go - in an ever expanding blob piece. By adding fabrics in this way I can hopefully, keep the colour, pattern and values balanced. Such fun!

I couldn't resist this little pot of Lisianthus - cheaper than a bunch of flowers and going to last so much longer. And what do you think of the container (if you can read it)? Wrong spelling but the right word!

Hope you are all coping with the world temperature extremes at the moment - whether too hot or too cold. We had a few days of blissfully cool weather here and I frantically worked in the garden, but I think the heat is heading back :(

Star Bouquet is finished

Just to recap from earlier posts... I started this quilt in January this year after seeing these two photos ...

in this quilt history book....

I "needed" another English paper piecing project and loved the way Mary Leggett (the quiltmaker in 1862) had used colours and fussy cutting in these stars. The original was made in silks and must have really glowed.

It has been great fun to make this - especially the challenge of copying the colours and patterns of the fabrics. Mary's quilt was beautifully hand quilted but I have domestic machine quilted mine. I do love how Mary quilted but I wanted my stars to have a 3D quality so avoided quilting on top of them. I deliberated about adding more quilting in the hexagons but decided that soft and puffy was good.

Quilting in the ditch

Now for a rave about the quilting process. Skip this if you are not a mad domestic machine quilter! 

I free motion quilted, in the ditch, around each star. No marking needed - yay. After all the stop/start quilting (necessary but very time consuming) on my Carolina Lily quilt, it was bliss to find I could quilt this one as a series of continuous lines from top to bottom of the quilt - no stop/starts at all. The continuous line followed in and out down one side of a row of stars. Then the next line was in and out down the other side of the row of stars, and so on across the whole quilt. Brilliant - it was finished in a matter of a few hours. I kept the speed reduced so as to avoid wandering out of the ditch - easily done believe me.

Enough yabber ...more pictures. 

Love this backing fabric - have had it "in storage" for a few years waiting for the right project.

On the table outside

Close-up 

Hanging on the washing line

And this is where it is sitting folded for the moment: 

Now for a sad little tale about a Tulip Lasagne. Here it was at the end of winter - springing up nicely. 

It flowered really well, first orange blooms then through reds, pinks and white. But I waited too long to take a 'full-bloom' photo and, after a few days away ( when we had experienced very strong winds), found it  rather bedraggled with lots of blooms gone. So here it is...

To post or not to post...

I thought twice about posting as you'll all say..."more of the same" - and that is how it stands with my quilting projects I'm afraid.

So how about knitting for something new?

Here is a beanie just finished for my son. It is 75% wool and 25% possum. Bit novel I thought - knitting with possum fur. In case you don't know possums are a protected species in Australia so this yarn is from New Zealand (where they are a major environmental pest and very much not protected).

Possums, cute as they are, have been a jolly nuisance in the vegie patch here, and have been roundly cursed by yours truly on many occasions. Like when they ate my entire crop of corn cobs overnight (just ready to harvest)...grr! So the beanie is a bit like getting my own back ?!

And just to prove I have been progressing with quilting projects :

More stars for the Star Bouquet quilt

Carolina Lily - third border appliqued and attached

In the garden I made a Tulip Lasagne. There are 25 bulbs layered under the lucerne in that pot and I have high hopes for a wonderful show in spring (being optimistic here) - will keep you posted.

It is very wintery in the garden at the moment but so nice to have these flowering inside.

Cyclamen

Hope you're getting lots of sewing time :)

Fabrics in my Stars

Here is my paper pieced "Mary Leggett" so far: 

 Carla suggested showing the fabrics I used to fussy cut these stars - good idea I thought !?

Can you spot the star made from this fabric (below)? It is close to the top right of the quilt photo. 

The more complex stars have two fabrics joined together. So here are some photos of these stars next to the fabrics from which they were made :

So... no magic there ...it just changes the way you look at fabric! A lot of the fabrics chosen have a definite stripe or line in them. This is handy for marking the border join between two fabrics. It also means you can form a hexagon shape in the middle of the stars. 

I noticed that the original quilt had a quite a few of the stars pieced in such a way that there was this hexagon fabric-patterned into the middle. So that is what I have aimed for in a lot of mine. 

It echoes the shape of the brown hexagon joiners - clever woman that Mary! 

Rosebuds ...with whiskers

While adding embroidery (as per pattern) to my Baltimore Album blocks I was wondering ....what are these whiskers on the end of the buds?  

So (being a bright spark) I looked in the garden where roses are in flower now. Of course, the whiskers are simplified sepals

While I was out there I checked the Iceberg roses down the driveway ...

...and picked a bunch ...and here are the same sepal whiskers again. Good to know!

It is a nice time for roses at the moment. These large apricot/ yellow ones (Dame Elizabeth Murdoch - an Australian rose) smell divine: 

Back to quilting...

Some more stars for the Mary Leggett Star Bouquet - having fun fussy cutting these: 

Here's a comparison of front and back - hardly recognisable! The papers are still in  - not to be removed until they are securely sewn together with the brown hexagon joiners: 

You'll be getting sick of seeing these soon/already - but it is a fairly slow process. At least I am enjoying the journey :)