Spooky All Points Patchwork Blog Hop!

This is the Halloween leg of the All Points Patchwork book tour...
Diane has really made this super fun, pulling together English Paper Piecers for different themed challenges month after month.  All week people have been showing off their Halloween themed EPP projects and today it's my turn:

Halloween Pentagon Table Runner

A couple years back, when I met my friend Eri, she was working on a blue and white pentagon pattern, alternating two fabrics and piecing together rings of 10 shapes each.  I was deep in a hexie addiction at the time and couldn't quite understand what you would do with all these little rings of pentagons, but filed the idea away under "cool" in my mental library and decided to try it when I had a chance.

Rings of pentagons, it so happens, are AWESOME for fussy cutting cute novelty prints.  I even played with stripes, which I'm not that comfortable with.

I made a bunch of rings from 1.5" and 1" pentagons and started playing around with layouts.  The boys helped, of course.

Once I had them where I wanted them, I marked a ring with my white marking pencil (I love that thing), removed the templates, gave each ring a good press, and pinned it into place.

Then, staying very close to the edge of the pentagons, I top stitched them into place by machine.  I stitched around the inner ring and up and down the points on the outside, removing pins as I went.

Once they were all securely stitched on, I layered, pinbasted, and quilted in "organic" crosshatch circle-ish things.  I like the light thread on the dark background, and I like how the round shapes play with the pentagon rings, but.. I think I might want to add some perle cotton stitches in fun colors somewhere too.  I've got 2 weeks til Halloween, we'll see what I come up with.

So that's it!  My contribution to the All Points Patchwork Halloween Hop.  If you haven't checked out a copy of All Points Patchwork, please treat yourself and do so!  The book is absolutely beautiful and full of ideas for how to add even small bits of English Paper Piecing to every area of your life.  Make sure to visit the other Halloween Hop crafters.. there's tons to learn and see in the links below~

****

Gotham Quilts' Yuma Blog Hop!

I did it!  I am so proud of having this quilt top done.

Forgive the ugly indoor classroom photo!  I brought it to school today because our campus is gorgeous, but couldn't find anyone to help with a photo shoot during lunch!  Here, this is one from my backyard yesterday..

You know, the more I look at this, the more I like it.
I love these fabrics, and the pattern is really striking, but, if you've been following my quilt journey for any length of time, you'll know that this was a big step outside my comfort zone.   Choose only 16 fabrics.  Cut all the pieces first.  Cut triangles on the bias before sewing..  Ah.  well, when I saw Ivete and Andrea with their sample quilt at the NYC Metro Mod meeting in June, I was bitten? kissed? by this quilt.  I really wanted to give it a try.  I'll admit, it was the thrill of the Quilt Along that lured me in initially, and the promise that I could use up large amounts of stash fabric quickly..
Plus I wanted to see if I could handle the challenge.  And, so long as you don't call the quilt police, I did pretty well.

 Look look, I even got a large amount of my points to match (enough for me).

So, about the pattern..
If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it.  If you are not experienced with triangles, you will learn so much.  Go here, download it for free now.

Now, I am not a pattern follower.  While complaining about that earlier this week, a good friend said, "But you write them so well!"  and I love her for the compliment, but the truth is, I feel much more comfortable with wiggle room, with space for error and growth, happy accidents.  I'm an improv quilter through and through.  That said, we all need to push our boundaries sometimes.  And one of the reasons I felt confident to take that risk here was that Andrea Deal is an amazing technical quilter.  I trusted that if anyone could guide me through untread forest, it would be her.  I was not disappointed.

This pattern is so well written, great for a visual learner.  Everything is color coded with fabric swatches so you can get your fabrics to end up where you want them.  There are even images of what will go wrong if you don't piece your triangles correctly.  I was SO impressed to see that step!  Saving us all the trouble of making the mistake on our own (you know you were going to.. it just happens).  The blank pattern is available on the Gotham Quilts blog so you can play around and color out your ideas before cutting any fabric.  And the shop owners are so kind and attentive.  I didn't ask questions along the way, but I'm sure you could.

I should note that I lengthened the original pattern by adding rows to the top and bottom.   I like the size, but have no idea how to quilt it.  I think I'll let it sit a while and then brows the #yumaqal hashtag on instagram to see what other quilters are doing with theirs.  Suggestions welcome, of course.

Apple Cores!!! All Points Patchwork Book Tour

This is my stop on the Apple Core leg of the All Points Patchwork book tour~

If you have not yet seen this thick and amazing book by Diane Gilleland, please check it out.  Let me warn you though, it is HEAVY.  (in a good way)  Diane covers so many possibilities for EPP-- numerous template shapes and construction methods.  Even for someone who's been addicted to doing EPP for years (like me), there are inspiration and ideas in here that I probably never would have stumbled upon, so set was I in my ways.  Thank you, Diane, for putting in the effort to make your ideas so clear to us, and for writing a beautiful book and I'm very happy to own and recommend.

I wanted to try curved EPP but I knew I was a little scared and that there would be a learning curve (hehe).  For my project on this Apple-a-Day Hop, I decided to combine strips of apple core patchwork with Jeni Baker's Drawstring Bag, which I've made a bunch of times and knew I could trust the pattern enough to play around with it.  (If you haven't tried Jeni's bag pattern, I highly recommend it-- there's a free tutorial on her blog.  If you'd like it in different sizes, the pattern is available in her shop)

I was completely unfamiliar with curved patch English paper piecing so I had to read that section in All Points Patchwork a few times to wrap my head around it.  I figured out basting pretty quickly, though the thought of basting through the papers and having to cut it out later kinda made me queasy.  (you think I'm kidding?  removing the basting at the end was terrifying!).  Soon enough the rhythmic stitches took over and I was hardly thinking about it.  When it came time to join them together though.. I felt like a fish out of water.  Thankfully, the book explains how to adjust your usual whip stitch to adapt to the curves.  I gave it a try, but half the time I ended up doing some sort of whip stitch/ladder stitch combination.  This was a practice project, a learning piece.  I wasn't too concerned with how my stitches looked on the front or the back, I was just curious how to do it.. trying to find the method that worked for me the best.  I guess I'm one of those people who can read the instructions over and over but it doesn't make sense til I get my hands on it, you know?

Thankfully, I figured it out.  I realized too late that I was clipping my inner curves too deep, but this bag won't get too much wear and tear, so I'm not going to worry about it.  Next time around I'll be more careful.  I pieced two strips of 5 x 2 apple cores and then pressed the heck out of them and started removing the basting stitches.

Diane's right, with curves, your iron becomes your best friend.  I was so so scared when removing the templates.  I thought my seam allowance would flop all over the place.   The iron made a sharp crease though so with some gentle coaxing, the curves stayed curvy and the seam allowances stayed generally where I wanted them.

(I'm visiting friends this week and their kitty was very curious about my patchwork.. )

In order to adjust the drawstring bag pattern to incorporate my EPP segments, I laid out the fabrics I wanted to use and fiddled with the measurements a bit.  When I thought I had it right, I top stitch appliqued the EPP to the other fabrics in a row (just as Jeni's tutorial does with the main and accent fabrics), leaving about 1/2" seam allowance under the EPP parts.  I used lots of pins and my ruler and cutting mat to keep things straight.

Before assembling the bag, I trimmed the extra EPP flush with my bag fabrics and made sure to back stitch at all seam crossings when I sewed it together.

I followed the tutorial as written to complete the project and it came out just as I had imagined!  I'm so so happy I tried curved EPP!  And it was really satisfying to make a small project, not just jump into another huge long-term hand pieced quilt (yes, Travel Quilts #4, 5 and 6 are still under way..).

Are you ready to try curved EPP and maybe even some Apple Cores?

You can order Diane's book here
Get apple core templates (or practically any other shape) from paperpeices.com
and don't forget to visit all the other stops on the Apple-a-Day hop too!

There is a little giveaway as part of the hop too.. if you comment on this post (international entries welcome!) you will be entered to win a pair of Clover Patchwork Scissors.  Aren't they cute?  Giveaway closes midnight on Sunday, July 12.
(this is a Rafflecopter giveaway )

************
I am headed off to Sisters today for my Quilters Affair class with Sarah Fielke!
Please pop over to my instagram feed (@jessica_alex) for a play by play of my time in quilting utopia!