Slow Sunday Stitching

I’m almost finished the third full row of Friendship Chain. So I’m now in the process of choosing the fabrics for the next row and glue basting them for stitching together. You can see the next set of fabrics cut and clipped to the bottom row. The colours are much more vibrant in real life. It’s hard to get an accurate photo at 7:30 in the evening.

This is going to be a very short post. I’m going to link up to Kathy’s Slow Sunday Stitching and then get back to glue basting.

A little bit of stitching...

Once again I’ve been absent from the blog world because of a virus, not a computer virus but a cold virus. I’ve been sick...... again. I think this might be the fourth time in the last 6 months. It is getting just a tad tiresome...... But as of today I’m starting to feel a bit more like myself again. The cement inside my sinuses is starting to soften up and at least I can put one or two coherent thoughts together at the same time. I’ve been doing some work on Friendship Chain. The second full row is finished and stitched in place and the third all row is halfway done. I’m starting to get into a rhythm of how to do it.


When I started this project, I thought I was going to have to cut everything first and then decide where the colours would go. Then it dawned on me that I could choose the fabrics first and where they would go and then do the cutting. That was a huge step forward in the process since it saves me a lot of cutting for fabrics that may or may not get used. It is a challenge to get the fabrics contrasting with each other side by side, as well as the one that is above it. Ultimately each fabric will be touching four others. But this is one of the things I love about designing my own quilts and choosing my own colours.... the challenge.

I hope to get this row finished this week and move onto selecting the fabrics for the next one.

I’m linking up to Let’s Bee Social and to the Canadian Needle and Thread Network and also to Esther’s WOW on Wednesday.

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.

Slow Sunday Stitching

I missed doing a post last week. We were away camping for Avery’s 7th birthday. There was no stitching done during that time at all. Lots of grandchild enjoying. Lots of hikes and playing outside and getting wet since it was, of course raining. After all the Shepherds were camping and we can’t ruin a good pattern can we? Even so, we had a good time.

I went out to a local store this past week to talk about teaching English Paper Piecing and we have come to an agreement. I will be teaching at Stitch It Central after they move to their new location in London. I don’t have dates yet, but I will post them as soon as I have them for anyone interested. I am now working on my third version of the class sample piece. They liked the design but wanted it done in fabrics from their store so they could offer fabric kits to anyone wanting them.

Version 1, done from my fabric stash using 7 different fabrics. It will be appliquéd to a white background and have some borders added to it.


Version 2 also done from my stash using 5 different fabrics. It too will go onto a white background square and have borders added to it.


Version 3 using Stitch It Central fabrics that will be available as a kit. It also will go onto a white background square with borders. This is the centre of it. This shows the rest of the fabrics in one of the diamond units and one of the edge wing units. All of the sub units are done for this and I am ready to start assembling it. Not bad considering I got the fabrics Wednesday. I’ve been working on it almost non stop since then. So, with the goal of having this done by the middle of the week, I’d best get back to it.

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