My First Hexagon for La Passacaglia

I have made my first hexagon ever! This is the start of my journey for La Passacaglia. I chose this block to start because it does not have any set in seams and looks pretty easy to make.  Just attach the little triangle on top of the half hexagon and make bigger triangles. Then sew them together, turning each piece one turn.  My plan was to make this hexagon in several different ways - machine piecing, hand piecing and EPP - so I could decide which method will work better for me. This is my machine quilting attempt.

And I have already learned a lot of lessons on this quilt. I printed out the pattern for the block, and looked at my acrylic templates. The templates were slightly larger than the pieces so I decided that with seam allowances, they would be close enough.  If I always use these templates, then they will work for the quilt, even if the size isn't an exact match to the pattern.  I made the block. I am very happy with the way the swiggly lines radiate out of the center.

Then I compared the block to the picture, and realized that it was too small. The template is for a one inch pieces, and I need one and a half. I need to measure more carefully and use the paper for the template so that I will make the correct size. Then, I looked at the inch measure. I printed the template too small. The one on the left is the correct size. So it is really, really too small.  The good news is that if I make the block the correct size, the quilt will go together pretty quickly. 

The two fabrics are different weights - I was matching colors, not weights, and using the same weight will make it function better.  I also did not match the points correctly in the center, so I am going to have to be more accurate with the piecing and matching of points.

I also did not fussy cut these pieces, since I figured squiggly lines would look fine without fussy cutting, but I do think it will look even better when it is fussy cut.

I've also decided that I like the machine piecing, and that will work best for me.  The other methods require prep - basting down the seams, cutting out the paper pieces, then taking out the paper. I am afraid that this quilt will become a UFO pretty quickly if I don't keep the process as simple as possible.  The acrylic templates worked great in showing me how to trim off the dog ears before I even start, making it easy to line up the pieces. Unfortunately, this quilt uses a lot of unusual pieces so these templates wouldn't be enough even if they were the right size.  Even though I won't be able to use them as much as I thought, I will be able to carry that concept to this quilt.

Other things I learned: 1 don't have nearly enough striped fabric. Also this quilt will not help me keep my space tidy.  Everyone is recommending that you go through your stash to figure out what you can use. 

I have finished sewing the Irish chain top.  It looked really boring to me until I put it on top of the green fabric. It's the same fabric that is in the top.  Now I like it again.  I will use the green for the binding and the back.  I also have another quilt in mind that will be able to use any remaining fabric perfectly. Hmm, I think this quilt might need a border. 

Elephant Parade Considerations

Here are all of my elephant parade blocks so far.  Some of them have the applique added, but as you can see, most of them do not.  I really like how it is looking so far, but I have this great debate.

On one side of the argument, I think that this quilt would look better with a 5x5 layout. I really enjoyed making these blocks, and I would be able to enjoy making this quilt longer. The new blocks don't all have to be unique - I could add more elephants, and make the bird that is in the original pattern. And I could make more people - they were fun to make.

On the other side of the argument, there are SO MANY quilts I want to make, as you can tell from my last few posts.  I am being tempted left and right with the next quilt. I also would be able to put away all the fabric that has been set out for this quilt, and get the space cleared up. And the 5 x 5 layout means that there would have to be 9 more blocks to make, and that seems like quite a commitment!

Today, I am leaning towards making more blocks. Yesterday, I wanted to finish it, and the other day, I wanted to make more blocks.

My first post on La Passacaglia

Once upon a time, when I was a fairly new quilter, I came across the book, One Block Wonder  by Maxine Rosenthal. There were also other books in this series too, One Block Wonders Encore! and One Block Wonders Cubed! There are also other similar books like Magic Stack -n- Whack Quilts by Bethany Reynolds and Kool Kaleidoscope quilts by Ricky Tims. All of these books take shapes and repeat them in different ways to make these really nice quilts. Most of them have to do with fussy cutting and lots of y-seams. I was wowed and impressed, but put it away because I was a fairly new quilter and this was completely out of my skill range. Plus fussy cutting uses up a lot of fabric, and I didn't have very much of that and certainly didn't want to waste it like that!

Fast forward twenty-some years, and I come across this concept again.  This time there are some new books. The first one was Millefiore Quilts by Willyne Hammerstein.  This quilt on the cover is what got a lot of people's attention. It is called La Passacaglia with Mr. Pascal. And it is a wonderful variety of shapes and colors that looks like a kaleidoscope.   I think the difference between this one and the older ones is that there are additional shapes that are in here, and there is a bigger variety of sizes of the rosettes. The pieces are hand pieced. This book is no longer in print so it is very expensive to get a copy, but there is a Millefiori Quilts book 2.

The problem was that you had to trace all these pieces in the book and hand sew them. Probably other people felt that it would be time-consuming and beyond their skill level too. But it really sparked an interest and lately there has been a resurgence, because people have been English Paper Piecing these little pieces. And smart people have made acrylic templates to help make cutting the pieces easier. Also smart people are selling paper pieces that are ready to use. You no no longer have to be photocopy and cut out all those little pieces. Also in this latest book, there are more even ways to make the shapes even more spectacular.

This new book is called The New Hexagon: 52 Blocks to English Paper Piece by Katja Marek, and it is available on a Kindle version, which makes it easy to print the templates. This book doesn't have the quilt pattern in it - just ways to make unique hexagon blocks.  But, Katja is hosting a quilt-along block of the month for the La Passacaglia quilt for people who bought her book. If I understand this right, this quilt combines the concept of the original quilt with some hexagons from her book.  Each month, they make one of the rosettes in the quilt, using hexagons from her book, and she provides instructions on how to do that. People post their progress on the Facebook page, which makes it wonderful to see all the different colorways and design choices people have made for this quilt. They are pretty far along - I think they are on rosette 8 now.

Anyway, I have decided to join them.  I am not sure I am ready for such an advanced quilt, but after twenty-some years of quilting, I am booting myself to the next grade.  Actually, I am told that this quilt is not as difficult to make as it looks. And that is exactly the type of quilts that I like! Something that looks harder than it is.

I am just starting out - I haven't cut a single piece or made a single hexagon.  This quilt can be very expensive to make - the many books, the acrylic templates, the paper pieces, the magic mirror, the glue, not to mention the fabric and the time.  I do think this quilt is worth some extra expense, and these supplies can be used for future quilts.   It can also be relatively inexpensive with the Kindle book and handmade paper pieces.

I've bought some acrylic templates because I remember how much easier and faster it was to cut drunkard's path with a template (layers!). and I think these templates are necessary on a quilt with this many pieces that need to be accurately fussy cut.  I haven't decided whether I will be hand piecing these or EPPing them.  I think I will try a small rosette with both and see which one technique I like better.

Another Animal Has Arrived for the Elephant Parade

I was minding my own business, hurrying up to finish the Irish Chain quilt so I could start something new, when lo and behold, this animal showed up in the sewing machine.  Yeah, it is one of those whatever you think it is animals. What do you think it is? Yes, that is exactly what it is.

I like that he is on an incline. Keeps the parade more interesting when the road isn't exactly flat. I lost his ear - I didn't want to fuse any of the applique on until I was sure, so this is a temporary one. He wound up with a shorter body than I was envisioning. Darn seam allowance. At this point, I can still change the ear and tail to make it look more like the animal you think it is.

 I think this means that I have enough blocks for the quilt I originally planned.  (4 x 4).  I'm tempted to make it a 5 x 5, but that would just delay the finish of this quilt.

I think I am going to add another couple of rows on the Irish chain. I have some more nine patches left, and am not sure I like the idea of a square Irish chain quilt. But I do want to keep the nine patches in all four corners, so I have to add two instead of just one more row. This quilt seems so boring when compared to all the new quilts I have been thinking about, but I know I wanted something simple and fast to balance out the slow moving quilts I have been working on. I was tempted by alternate pieced blocks and applique, but I do hope I can keep it simple throughout, even though it looks so boring right now. I will free motion this quilt though instead of diagonal straight lines to make a modern feel to it and to practice my free motion quilting. I haven't done that yet on my "new" machine.

I'm Going to Make Orphans!

I have been eying a lot of quilts the last couple of years, and in some ways, was happy that I was not able to get a hold of the pattern because the library doesn't carry it.  The thing I noticed is that most of these are sampler type quilts that don't really look like sampler quilts.

My Small World - pattern in Quiltmania Spring 2015

Nature's Journey by Anni Downs

The Gypsy Wife pattern booklet by Jan Kingwell

I've decided that I am going to make a sampler type quilt. I'm really not sure what type of layout I will use, but I figure it will give me permission to make little orphan blocks with the hope of someday putting them together in a quilt like one of these. It will give me a chance to use up those free patterns I have collected over the years without having to make the whole quilt. Just some blocks collected here and there.

This idea fits in well with the quilt I have been making A Life of Plenty - making individual blocks and fitting them together in a quilt. And no, this isn't because I am tired of the repetition of the Irish chain quilt.

Quilting Day

I'm not finished with all of the things that had been pushed back, but I am thoroughly enjoying having the time to finally get to them.  There is a joy in having time to do the things you have to do, even if you didn't really enjoy doing them before. Even things like cleaning and yard work.

But now, I have finally given myself permission to get back to quilting.  I have been looking at blog posts and Pinterest and seeing so much inspiration for new projects, but I am holding myself to finishing my current projects.  They still hold my interest, as tempting as it is to start something new.

In case you don't remember from my very sporadic posts, I started three quilts this year.  Two of them were Quiltalongs. One is called Elephant Parade, which is a modern quilt with cute elephants, frogs, flowers, and turtle.  I have changed it up by using animal prints and by adding additional animals.  The other is called A Life of Plenty and it is more folk artsy with piecing, applique and embroidery.  Both of these use a lot of different fabrics, and my sewing area still has a jumble of fabrics I brought down so I could choose the perfect fabric for each.

I am not sure whether I mentioned the third quilt I was making.  I realized as I was making the quiltalong quilts, that I needed a Leaders and Enders quilt.  I tried as best as I could to just use the same quilt as a Leaders and Enders or alternate with the other quilt, but in the end, I realized I needed something mindless that I could simply run through the machine so I could get the piece I was working on out of the machine without having those long threads.

It was around Saint Patrick's Day at the time, and an Irish Chain quilt was something that has been on my to-do list practically since I began quilting.  I found some fabric on sale - it just have been right after the holiday - that would be perfect for it, so I went ahead and started using it up.  It is slow going, of course, since I only use it when I don't have something on my current projects to run through the machine, but now I am thinking that if I could get it done, I could then work on the triangle quilt for my bed.  The triangle (or thimble, depending on what I decide), will then be the Leaders and Enders I will use to keep the two main quilts moving along.

Even with these picture closeups, I think it is pretty obvious that my sewing room needs a serious cleaning.  I've got competing interests this week - "Finish something and use up what you have!" and "Clean and organize so you have space to work!"  I plan to do both this week.

While I was catching up on my blog reading, I read several posts about cleaning clutter and not buying things as a substitute of actually making things.  I recommend the following:

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2015/07/stash-attack.html for quilt fabric
http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2015/07/stop-hoarding-start-creating.html for craft supplies
http://www.leedrew.com/2015/07/genealogy-how-many-certificates-do-you.html for genealogy documents

Vacation

Bison at Darby Creek, Columbus, Ohio

My crazy days of working 55+ hours a week are over now. I've neglected my blog during this time period, but many other things also were neglected. Things like quilting, for sure, but also house cleaning and errands were made to wait until the crazy time was over. That is one of the challenges of working on projects. When you know the end date, you wind up throwing as much to after that date as possible. "I'm not even going to think about it until after this project is over."

Even dealing with the empty nest syndrome was pushed back to after work was over. I did get a chance to see this lovely scene at a park with my family, but my daughter wasn't there to see it. They said that the bison rarely come so close to the fence but that day they did and they posed for us for many beautiful pictures.

Fountain at Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada

My sister wanted to go to Canada to see an Islamic museum, and I told her to wait until after work was over. She did. Work was supposed to be over on a Tuesday, and she planned the trip for Wednesday! There were some events she wanted to attend that required us to go right away.  I packed on Wednesday morning, and at 9 a.m, we headed off for a long car trip. All those geometric designs in the museum are very inspiring. After we came back, I rested. Now I have been slowly incorporating all those things that were pushed back. Laundry! Cooking! Cleaning! Errands! Gardening!

Quilting is next. As always happens when quilting is pushed back, when that Pandora's box opens, everything comes spilling out. I want to make that triangle quilt I mentioned last time. I want to make a hexagon quilt. Have you seen the Millefiore quilt? And that brings to mind other EPP quilts. And then what about all the quilt ideas I got from the museum? I still need to work on cleaning up the sewing space and finishing up some WIPs before I let any ideas about starting any new projects get too big.