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~

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Good Neighbors

Thank you for the kind comments and words of encouragement on my MMSC post yesterday.  I completely agree, bloggers who write honestly and authentically have a certain quality that makes them very readable.  I love ones who share so much of themselves and their lives, blogs that come to mind of being of that style are here, here and here.  Love, truth, struggle, honesty.  And so beautifully written.  I fear that this style works best when the writers are "normal" or dealing with socially acceptable problems.. and I can't say that all of my challenges right now fall into those categories.  I am making tough choices, choosing to do what I feel is right over what society, my family and my loved ones may expect.  And it's hard, but it's so worth it.

You have all been good neighbors to me, and I am so thankful.  So here, let me show you a quilt I made..

When AmandaJean announced she had new fabric coming out with Connecting Threads, I jumped at the chance to help her promote it.  I chose the cooler colors from Good Neighbors, teal, patriot blue, grey, green and joined them with Patriot blue and Indigo solids.  (This still needs another border in the Indigo, but I wanted to take pics today when I had time).
I chose two blocks from Get Started Quilting, the Starry Night improv stars, and the Improv Housetops, which I modified a bit.  This quilt is very similar to one of the design wall samples (p. 116, I think) but I wanted to see how it would look in cool colors and with the circle of stars in the center.  Here's a bit of my process:

Start by making the double star wonky star blocks:

I use the chain piecing method described in the book to keep the star point units together as I assemble the block (leave thread chains between the patches as you machine piece and then they don't accidentally get out of order).

Make 4 star blocks, and rotate them so that they alternate Big-Small-Big-Small and form a ring.  (I love how this happens)

Then start in on the housetop blocks-- making rings of medium, light, and then dark around center squares (completely improv, nothing needs to be measured, slice in angles for visual interest, trim down at the end).

The Improv Housetop pattern in the book has you make one big ringed block, cut it in quarters, trim up to 6.5" and reassemble so all the centers are going the same direction.  For a large portion of these blocks, I just cut the ringed blocks in half, trimmed to 6.5" x 12.5" and stacked them.

Assembly is a little tricky-- I added panels of housetops to the top and bottom of the star section, then built up the two side panels carefully pressing seams for optimal ease at the final joining of columns.  I could have planned it out before I started sewing, but that's just not how I work.

I added 3" borders in Patriot blue and I want to put on one more border of Indigo before quilting it.  I have.. limited ideas for how that will go so far, so I think I'll let it sit as I think on it for a few days.  Suggestions welcome.

I loved making this quilt.  The Connecting Threads solids have such a nice weight to them and Amanda Jean's Good Neighbors prints are really just that-- I can see these prints working so well with others in my stash already.  Plus the whole line is just cheery and candy coated and reminds me of all of her other quilts.  I really enjoyed playing with it.

So, this is how I quilt.  From idea to partially finished top, it took about 4 months.  I'm surprised I did it so quickly.  Most of the piecing and assembling was done in about 4-5 days.  I do not like to rush.  I want to remember the process (I forgot that that's why I started blogging in the first place, waaaaay back in 2006) and to work out my thoughts as the quilt takes shape.  There is bigger meaning here, much bigger, and I think the social media wave often knocks people off balance.  It's part of life though, one more thing to manage.  Thanks for rallying around me this week, friends.  You guys are the best neighbors <3 p="">

Going to Market?

Me?  Sadly, no.  But this mini quilt from my book will be there, in the Paperpieces.com booth!

The patterns in the back of the book were all just done as samples (except for p. 109, Ayane's star.  There's a photo of the quilt on p. 48), so I quickly added borders and quilted it up in time for Market.
I took a few photos of the process, and while it's far from a full tutorial, I thought I'd post them to show how I did it..

* First I cut border strips 4" wide and lined one up with the lines on my cutting mat.  Then I carefully placed the freshly-pressed EPP patchwork on top, overlapping the bottom edge of the border. (When you press your EPP, remember to tuck in any seam tails).

* Next I took my ruler and lined up the top of the border strip with the 4" mark on the ruler.  I gently pulled the EPP down until the inner points of the edge were aligned with the ruler's 1/2" mark. (Look at the 9 at the center of the ruler).

* Then I carefully pinned the EPP part to the border strip.

* And machine topstitched it into place.  This is a view from the back so you can see that 1/2" of the border is underneath the innermost points of the EPP.  I do not cut away the excess at the top points.

For this piece, I cut my border strips extra long and mitered the corners.  I would have taken photos except I bribed George for quilting time by letting him play Bad Piggies on my phone and he was getting tired of pausing the game so I could take step-by-step shots.  I was too lazy (and in a hurry) to find the real camera, so this is as far as the tutorial goes.  Hope it makes sense.  If anyone has questions, just ask.

I am very happy that a little part of me will be at Market this month, and happy too that I have a small finish to link up this week at Crazymomquilts.  If you are lucky enough to be going to Houston, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!!  And please post often to Instagram so I can follow along from home!

Pin Cushion Tutorial at Timeless Treasures Blog

We've had a busy week and I almost missed it, but I just need to share that I've got a tutorial up over at Sew Timeless, the Timeless Treasures blog.
Come on over and learn how to make the English paper pieced pin cushion pattern from Quilting on the Go!

It's quick, it's easy, and you can try out EPP (or new fabric combos) without committing to a whole quilt!  If you make one, let me know~

Moda Honeycombs for EPP

Have you seen the pre-cut hexagons in fabric shops?  Seeing as hexies are all the rage (and have been for some time now it seems), it really isn't surprising that manufacturers have started laser cutting them for our convenience.  Moda makes nice stacks called Honeycombs.  You get 40 per pack and they measure 3" per side.  They come with a piece of template plastic with holes to mark seam allowance, which is great if you plan to stitch them by machine, but I took one look and had other plans..

Moda was nice enough to send me some Honeycombs to play with and today I'm going to share a little tutorial for how to use the Honeycomb pre-cuts for English paper piecing.

A Honeycomb can be cut into the following EPP shapes and sizes:
2" equilateral triangles
2" 60-degree diamonds
1" (short side) kites
2" half hexagons

Depending on the seam allowance you prefer, you can change them up a bit to suit your comfort level.
I happen to be a huge fan of 60 degree diamonds, and if you cut up a Honeycomb, your diamonds come out to exactly 2 5/8" high-- perfect to baste around a 2" template.

So let's cut  some.
First, layer two print Honeycombs.

 Next, place the plastic hexie template (the one that comes with the fabric) so that 1/3 of the hexagon is covered.  Carefully align the corners.

 Here you've got two options-- either draw a line around the template and cut with scissors, or go at it with a rotary cutter (carefully though, a fresh blade can slice through the template plastic)

 

 Your cut may go a bit further than necessary, but that's not really a big deal.  Slide the cut diamonds out of the way, reposition the template, and cut again.

Now you have 6 cute diamonds, ready to baste to your EPP templates.

 The next step is to secure fabric to your templates with paper clips.

Fold in and baste around the edges with 5 backstitches, taking additional bites of fabric along each side.  Do not stitch through the template paper!

Whipstitch your diamonds into a star!

I'm going to turn these into a pillow.  What can you make with Moda Honeycombs and EPP?

Check out my book for more pattern ideas, and get ready to stitch outside this summer!

And so concludes the Quilting on the Go Blog tour.  Thanks to all the great bloggers who participated and thanks to you all for travel stitching with us~  If you haven't already, head over to Lucy's blog to enter the giveaway and don't forget to use the 20% off coupon UNDER20 at Paperpieces.com!

(p.s. this tutorial is cross posted at Moda's Cutting Table and Potter Craft's Crafternews, make sure to pop over there too and say hi~)

Ribbon block tutorial

Last night Frederick asked if I could point him to some directions for my ribbon block, which I made up last February.  At the time, I took pics to make a tutorial, thinking I'd use the block for my month in a bee, but changed my mind.  Now's as good a time to share it as any, right?  So here goes--

Start with a square (I think mine was 9")

Make a slice to one side of center, cutting the block into roughly 3/5 and 2/5.

add in a strip of fabric.

Press.  Rotate the block a quarter turn, slice again, making 3/5 and 2/5.

Add in a strip of the same color.  When joining the pieces, fold back the top a bit so you can line up the seams of your first strip.

Press.  Rotate the block another quarter turn.  Slice and add again.  This time I put in a different colored strip.

For the 4th cut, I added in the same yellow, making it appear to overlap the moss green.

First round done!  On to the next round..

As you slice and add, be sure to keep rotating in the same direction and it will appear that your ribbons overlap in a spiral pattern. 

Some slices can be a little wonky/angled, but be sure to match seams carefully and pin if you want your earlier strips to line up.

It's really not as difficult as it looks.  Go ahead, give it a try!

My second attempt:

If you make any, I'd love to see them!  add links to blogs/flickr in the comments~