Leo’s Mane Centre Diamonds Instructions.

Welcome to the first step of the Leo’s Mane Sew Along. I hope you are as excited to start sewing as I am to start sharing.
The first step is to do the diamonds for the centre. Your finished diamonds will look like this.




You will need 96 Centre Diamond papers to make these units. Cut 48 red diamonds and 48 blue diamonds from your fabrics. Baste them to the papers using your preferred method. Sew them together into 24 diamond units.

CUTTING TIP:

This is based on fat quarters. Cut 5 strips of 1 1/2 inches from each of the diamond colours. Stack the strips four high, wrong sides facing up. Using a washable glue slick of some sort, Elmer’s school glue will work for this, lightly glue paper diamonds down the length of the top strip placing them at last 1/2 inch apart to give the seam allowance.



Using a rotary cutter and ruler, cut the diamonds apart.
That’s it for this time. The next step comes out October 1st.

Leo’s Mane third border

I finished the sample for the workshop Charlene and I are planning. It still needs to be quilted and assembled into the pillow top it is destined to be.

So, I’m back to Leo’s Mane again, working on the third border. I thought this was going to be a slow going fiddly one, but it’s actually much faster to sew together than I thought it would be. I started with making pairs on Wednesday. Pairs then became quadruplets. And quadruplets became stars.


Finally, they need their background triangles. 
This will give me a really good idea of how to pace out the posting for the instructions, and how much to include in each one for the sew along in each step.
If you are interested in joining in, email me at eagleswingsquilts@icloud.com and I’ll send you out the information that’s been released so far. The first set of actual instructions will get emailed out on September 15th, as well as getting posted here on the blog.
I’m linking up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then I’m going to make some more pairs.

Design floor Monday....

I’m taking a short break from Leo’s Mane, and working on a smaller English Paper piece. My quilty friend Charlene and I are are putting together a joint trunk show presentation and also some workshops that we will be offering for guilds, starting in the spring of 2018. In order to have workshop samples, we are putting them together now. We are using three of the blocks from Leo’s Mane, enlarged slightly, to make them easier to work with for people who haven’t done English Paper Piecing before. These will end up at 14 inches square, once they are finished. I’m working on the one using the house shapes.
Charlene put together the one using the octagons.
There will be one other, giving the workshop participants a choice from three designs.
I’ll post contact details and other information here on the blog once we know more about the workshops and the trunk shows. I do know that we are going to be limiting our travelling to within 2 hours of London Ontario.
I’m going to link up to Design Wall Monday and then get back to more stitching. I’m hoping to have this block finished tonight.

Leo’s Mane on Wednesday

Leo now has his second border finished and stitched in place. WOOHOO!! 
Time to move onto the third. If you want to join in a sew along for this quilt, email me at eagleswingsquilts@icloud.com. I’ll send you out the introduction information. The first email of the papers pdf goes out on September 1st, for those who with to cut their own papers. The first instructions for actual sewing will go out September 15th.
This is a quick keep everything up to date post. It’s late in the day, so I’ll link up to Lorna’s Let’s Bee Social, the Canadian Needle and Thread Network and also to Esther’s WOW on Wednesday.

Leo’s Mane

I’ve made great progress this week. All of the blocks for the second border are done, except one, which I can finish today. Then I can start sewing them together and get them attached to the main body. It is so exciting to see something that only existed in the Electric Quilt software come to life. I’ll probably do a little re-arranging of the blocks in the border to get a more even distribution of the purples before sewing it together. I’m looking forward to starting on the next set of blocks.
As always, if you are interested in sewing along on this project, leave me a comment here, making sure your email is visible, or email me at eagleswingsquilts@icloud.com.
Martina M., if you are reading this, I got your comment that you want to join us, but your comment came up as a no-reply blogger. I’ve left a comment on your blog asking for your email address, or you can leave a comment here, with your email in it.
I’m linking  up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then it’s back to more stitching.

Leo’s Mane progress report...

It went a little slower this past week, and especially on the weekend. Our son in law Matt went to participate in a Half Mudder obstacle course endurance thing this past weekend, and Our daughter Becca went along to watch and cheer him on. We stayed home with their little Abbie.We had lots of fun playing with that darling little girl, but, as usual, it was exhausting. She is a non stop bundle of energy, bouncing from one activity to another. The only thing I have found that keeps her happily occupied is a small wading pool full of water and a bunch of containers. She played at that for at least an hour or more yesterday afternoon. 
In the meantime, back to Leo’ s Mane. I got some octagons sewn into pairs. Then half of the pairs got a red square sewn to them. And then pairs without red squares got sewn to those with red squares. All that’s left now its to sew the corner units on to about ten of the finished four octagons, and this step will be almost done. This post is a sneak peak for future sew along steps.
I’m linking up to Design Wall Monday and to Esther’s WOW on Wednesday

Leo’s Mane Sew Along.... Introduction and Fabric Requirements

Introduction:

Leo’s Mane is the result of a fascination with the kite shape and the stars they form. It is the third in a series of quilts made from this shape. I’ve named them after various constellations and stars. In this design the shape the diamonds make around  the kite stars reminded me of a lion’s mane, therefore “Leo’s Mane”, after the Leo constellation.

It started off as a simple wall hanging with only the centre section. But after looking at it for some time, it didn’t quite seem finished. So I spent an evening playing in the Electric Quilt 7 computer program and it grew and grew and grew. There were several block changes made because the original choices did not work well for the size of the blocks or for the English Paper Piecing technique. Pictured below is the final rendition of the quilt we will be making. I can’t show you a picture of the actual finished quilt because mine isn’t finished. I’ll be sewing along with everyone else, although I’ll be a few steps ahead.


How It Will Work:

Starting September 15th I will send out an email to those who have signed up and also post here on the blog instructions for the section to be worked on. We will start in the centre of the quilt and work out from there. On the 15th of September I will email to those who have signed up printable pdf pages of the shapes needed to make the centre section, for those who wish to cut their own papers. The papers will be available for purchase from my web site, should you wish to purchase them already cut. Go here to purchase. Also, issued on September 15th will be the instructions for the first element of the design. After that, the instructions will go out on the 1st and 15th of each month. Each section of the quilt will be broken down into 3 or 4 separate steps. You can follow the steps as given, or sew them together however you prefer. I will not be giving actual instructions on how to do the English Paper Piecing technique. There are many excellent you tube videos that show it much better than I can. A couple to check out are Sue Daley and Hillbilly Quilt Shop; both of these have multiple videos showing the techniques required. I will however, share tips if I come across something while making my own quilt that I think will be helpful to you as you sew along. Please feel free to email me any questions you may have and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Fabric Requirements:

Following are  the fabrics needed to make the entire quilt. I have also broken the yardage downing the requirements for each section. These amounts were generated by the Electric Quilt 7 computer program; which tends to be generous in the amounts needed. If you are interested in signing up for this sew long, please email me at eagleswingsquilts@icloud.com