Slow Sunday Stitching

My new quilt called Friendship Chain is growing and taking shape. The mechanics of how to put it together are coming along. One of the things I wasn’t sure of was how to figure out which colours and fabrics would go where when adding on new rows. I think I’ve figured out an easy solution. Cut a whole pile of sets of diamonds and trapezoids out of lots of fabrics and colours. Then lay the new ones on top of the preceding row since they will be intersecting with that row, changing out colours and fabrics as necessary.Then make sure that there is enough contrast between the new additions that are beside each other so that the chains will be distinct from one another. Then I took pictures to remind myself of which colours were going where for reference. The last step is to clip a pair of diamonds to the bottom of the unit where they belong and then set the rest of them aside. Now I know which colour diamonds need to be sewn to which. This picture is my working version with the some of the pairs already sewn in and the rest just clipped in place. I love playing with colour.My goal is to make this 8 full chains wide by 10 full chains long. I would like to be able to make this a “charm” quilt, meaning that I won’t repeat a fabric. Whether I can make that goal is debatable at this point. The more important thing will be to achieve a balance of colour and brightness.
I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching. Then I’m going to take everything off the design boards and get to stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Last week I showed a picture of a quilt I’ve named Friendship Chain that I wanted to start. It was an Electric Quilt 7 generated picture - this one. 

Since then I’ve actually started on the quilt and made a bit of progress.  It’s a bit of a challenge trying to figure out how to sew it together in a logical manner. If I were doing it in just two colours it wouldn’t be bad at all. But I want each chain to be a different colour and haven’t quite figured out yet the best way to do that. I’m English Paper Piecing it and am quite happy with the way it looks so far. I’ve changed the triangles that show in between each block in the Electric Quilt picture to diamonds and that is part of what is making the piecing so challenging. But I didn’t want that extra seam in there. I suspect at some point I’m going to have to set up a design wall and lay it out and then do a diagram of what colours are going to go where and what will be paired with which. In the meantime, I’m having fun. I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching

I have a couple of Slow Sunday Stitching project finishes this week. First off, the class sample - which really does need another name - any ideas anyone? Not that I can respond to thank you or say that I like it since blogger continues to have issues with forwarding comments to my email.......

Anyway, here’s the picture.



And then I finished off and added borders to Sapphire Net.



It’s an Electric quilt public domain block, and that was the name given in Electric quilt, so I’ll keep it. The border is quite bright and in your face, but it works well with the large scale florals that are in the centre of the quilt.

And because those two are done I’ve given myself permission to start a new one. I’m calling it Friendship Chain. It is also from the Electric Quilt software in the Barbara Brackman Blockbase. I’m still working on figuring out exactly how to put it together. It’s quite complex and I’m not sure off the top of my head how to tackle it. I’ve started cutting pieces and it will be English Paper Pieced using my scraps with each of the intertwined chains a different colour. And that’s the part that is causing the  difficulty in putting it together. A two colour quilt would be easy but since when have I ever done anything the easy way?

Anyhow, I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching before going back to more cutting to get ready for this new project. I’m hoping lots of scraps will be used up in this one.

Slow Sunday Stitching

I finished putting together the class sample for Stitch It Central and appliquéd it down to a background square. I am very pleased with the way it looks so far. It needs a couple of borders to finish it off and then I can get it quilted and into the hands of the quilt shop so they can promote the classes.

We had a vendor’s booth at the Sarnia quilt show on Friday and Saturday. What a great time we had. We met lots and lots of people and introduced a lot of them to the English Paper Piecing techniques. So many of them thought it would be so hard and after showing them the basics of it they came away realizing that yes, they could do it. I even did a couple of demonstrations to a couple of groups. Anyone who knows me well realizes what a challenge that is for me, and yet it went well and I had fun and wasn’t nervous at all. It used to be that when I had to talk to people I didn’t know, especially a group of people, I would get huge knots of anxiety in my stomach. I seem to have gotten over that and I think a large part of that can be credited to several very good and supportive friends, (yes Gail I mean you) Belonging to the quilt guild and being an active part of their programs has also helped immensely. Here I am showing someone what the paper is like and how it looks after being used and removed.

Since the class sample is finished I picked up Sapphire Net again. I started this ages ago and then it got set aside while I worked on Leo’s Mane. It’s time for this one to make some progress now. The floral units are all stitched together. All that is left is to do all the background units and then I can call this one finished.

I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching before going back to more stitching.