Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Quilt - Part 8 (Borders and Binding)

I think it is fair to say that Part 8 of the Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery Quilt involved quite a lot of work, so this is the second instalment of my progress so far.  The top is pieced together, and this weekend I put some time aside to choose the borders and the backing.


Easy Street Mystery Quilt

After letting the cogs in my brain do their bit, I have decided not to add further borders.  With the quilt being quite large already, I felt it was large enough, and probably heavy enough, so to finish off the edge of the quilt I have decided to add a very thin, red inset into the binding.  The red adds some intensity to the purple and although only very thin, gives a nice outline.  I have pieced up the red inset from red scraps from 20cm to 70 cm long, and it is ready to go. 


Plans for Easy Street Quilt Border and Binding

For the binding, I looked to see what I had left over in my stash, and one of the largest pieces remaining was the Sandy Gervais Moda print  'Friendly Folk'.  This looked better than the 'neutral', as the red berries and the green foliage on the print added something, and tied in the red inset strip.  I have enough of this to go around the entire quilt.  Again, it is all pieced together in a strip nearly 9 metres long.


Easy Street Quilt Binding

These decisions usually take me a very long time, but in the long run it is rarely time wasted.  It also allows the luxury of playing with your fabric stash, as you audition the colours.  With the decision not to add borders to the quilt, it slightly altered my plans for the day, as these will be added once Easy Street has been quilted - no plans for that yet.

Meanwhile, I have been able to enjoy the first of the snow for the winter.  On Friday it snowed all day, with almost 6" settling, with advice to stay off the roads and many schools and offices closed. With the temperature not rising above 0 degrees, the snow is still about, but slowly thawing.


Snow, January 2013

Holiday Road Trip - Quilt Shops in Wales

Over the Christmas holidays we took off in our campervan to West Wales, towards Tenby and Camarthenshire for a few days.  As usual, I checked out what goodies could be found along the way, in the way of quilt shops.  As part on my internet research I came across an EXTREMELY useful website by Arnout Cosman, which has listed all the quilt shops, not only in the United Kingdom, but throughout the whole of Europe.  Not only are they listed comprehensively on the website, with maps, but there is also a download file available for your TomTom, Garmin or other GPS navigation system in your car.  As we have driven around Europe in our campervan, I have often dreamt of such a facility ...  As yet, I have not downloaded the file, so I have not tested it out for myself, but I will keep you informed of my progress.  It lists 166 quilt shops in the UK, and 227 in Germany - I think this is where we may be heading in the near future.
Anyway as a result of this find, I picked up a few new shops to visit on our journey, which included Isabeau Inspirations, Patchwork and Quilting Shop.


Isabeau Inspirations Quilt Shop,
Crosshands, Llanelli, Wales

This was a lovely shop, with a good selection of different fabrics including batiks, Japanese, novelty, and a good selection of shades, and tone on tone colours, and very helpful staff.  There was also a very large bead shop, Serendipity Beads, right next door. I picked up a few lovely fabrics whilst I was there.

(L-R) Serenity by Anna Fishkin for Red Rooster Fabrics DSN # 22147
Michael Miller 'Fairy Frost' D # CM 0376
Panzy Pazazz by Janet Broxon (P&B Textiles, 2006) 

I don't really use pink too much in my work, but I was blown away by this wacky, dotty pink print "Panzy Pazazz" by Janet Broxon (P&B Textiles, 2006).  It is a pink / magenta colour, which is a colour I find quite hard to find usually, and most of the dots and stars on it are in metallic gold.  Its too late for my Pies and Tarts quilt project now, but I can see me squeezing it into lots of my projects from now on.  I also bought some of the Michael Miller 'Fairy Frost' D # CM 0376, in a pink.  I had seen this on the internet, but it was hard to see the reflective nature of it, without seeing it the flesh.  It is a nice tone on tone fabric, with the pattern printed in a 'frosting'. On the left is 'Serenity' by Anna Fishkin for Red Rooster Fabrics DSN # 22147 in pink - I just thought it was pretty.
It is easy to be drawn in by the lovely bright quilting fabrics, so to balance these bright colours in my stash, I also looked for some interesting neutrals.


(L-R) "My Favourite Things" by Anni Downs of Hatched and Patched Pattern # 7542,
Henry Glass Fabrics in two tones, and 'Bear Essentials' by P&B Textiles

On the right is the quilt fabric 'Bear Essentials' by P&B Textiles.  The little print reminded me of the plant, Honesty.  The other two are both from the same Henry Glass Fabric range, "My Favourite Things" by Anni Downs of Hatched and Patched Pattern # 7542.  The backgrounds are slightly mottled, with a random allover cross - I don't think you can go far wrong with that.
With the fury of the Easy Street quilt, my fabric stash is in need of a re-think.  I only tend to buy fat quarters or half metres, as I like to stay scrappy, but these small pieces are increasingly difficult to store.  Does anyone have any have ideas that they use?

Taking the Lead with Easy Street

Leaders and Enders from Easy Street

As a result of all my efforts on Easy Street I have created this little pair of scraps - my leaders and enders.  They are just a drop in the ocean of curtain lining scraps which I have acquired  making all the curtains for the windows of our new house. You can see that I have even tried to add a bit of creative embroidery by adding the purple dog ears from the Easy Street Quilt ...

As I have only just entered the world of machine pieced quilts, the leader and ender notion was a new one to me, so these are two of the few that have entered my life so far. Anyway, I soon discovered that there was a creative solution to this.



Book - Adventures with Leaders and Enders
by Bonnie K Hunter

Enter stage right -
"Adventures with Leaders and Enders - Make More Quilts in Less TIme!" by Bonnie K Hunter. 
Yes, another Christmas gift from Santa.  I can really see the value of this exercise - I just have to decide which Leader / Ender quilt I am going to work on.

I have spent the weekend putting all of my Easy Street Mystery Quilt blocks together. No border decisions yet, and probably not until next weekend, when I am at home during the daylight.  I am thinking it will need to be pieced, but with no lead from Bonnie, I am adrift, and will have to work out a plan when I have a little quiet time to myself.

 

It was a beautiful bright, sunny, fresh day here in the UK today. They are promising some snow tonight .. the first of the winter. 



Easy Street Quilt

Pies and Tarts Quilt - English Paper Piecing

Pies and Tart Quilt

Along with piecing my Easy Street Mystery Quilt over the holidays, I have also managed to complete the quilt top for my Pies and Tarts quilt.  This has been a hand piecing project for the past few years, started in February 2011.  The last few bits should have only taken about half a day to do, but Easy Street has rather taken over. When you are hand piecing, completing the top is a major milestone, so I thought I would share this with you.

I was also trying to use my stash and create a scrappy quilt, so I made up some slightly larger cardboard pies and tarts templates from cereal packets, adding on for the seam allowance, for the pies and smaller tarts to draw around for my fabric shapes.  I did a whole 'Pie' and some different sized slices to accommodate some fussy cutting and to use smaller scraps.  I found that a 5" charm square was the perfect size to fit the fabric template for a 'tart'.  As a result of all this circular cutting, a quick sift through my current stash will find fat quarters with awkward round holes in them - no neat strips for this project!

Because I only had a limited number of paper patchwork templates, I tended to cut the fabric in batches, pairing up colour schemes for each circle as I went along.  With a little bag of paper templates, some colourful fabrics scraps, and a needle and cotton, I was on my way.  It travelled with me everywhere, and gradually the Pies and Tarts quilt accumulated.  There are a variety of textured background navy fabrics used in this quilt.


Pies and Tarts Quilt Detail

The construction of each block roughly went a bit like this
1. Tack fabric around paper templates
2. Select two sets of four coordinating 'slices'
3. Sew up four pairs of the two colours, overstitching them together
4. Sew the four pairs to make a circle or 'pie'
4. Press the completed circle to ensure a smooth circular edge
5. Applique circle onto a 8" square of navy fabric, removing paper templates as you go.



Pies and Tarts Quilt Top Completed

It was only once four blocks were pieced together (by hand, of course!) that it was possible to apply the smaller tart in the middle.  With the verticals and horizontals of the blocks, it was easy to place the circles in the same direction, which adds a diagonal pattern to the whole quilt as well.  I have added half circles to the edge, and to finish the edge I will be adding a very narrow navy border.

At this stage I am joining up with Finish It Up Friday  and HeLP for Hexiaholics - the next stage is to put it away for a while whilst I decide on the quilting pattern I will use, and it waits its turn to be hand quilted ....



Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Quilt - Part 8 (nearly)

As soon as I pressed 'Publish' on my last blog post, I returned to my sewing machine to continue with my Easy Street quilt, only to find it had gone on strike, and the little workhorse was not responding.  After checking the 'troubleshooting' section in the handbook, and all the online forums, I still had no luck, so yesterday it went to the Sewing Machine Doctor. I am waiting for the diagnosis ... Anyway, never fear, I pulled out my Husqvarna Designer 1 Embroidery Sewing Machine, and continued on that.  It works fine, but I had got used to the single needle plate, had sussed out my 1/4" seam allowance, and had wound a bunch of bobbins. And now I am having to work without it, I really appreciate the Pfaff IDT (duel feed).

There is nothing quite like a 'Link Up' to motivate you on a project, so knowing that everyone will be sharing their progress on the Easy Street Mystery Quilt on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Blog, here is my offering.

Easy Street Quilt - Block Layout

As you can see, all my blocks are complete, and this is the layout of the quilt.  As you may also see, at the time of writing, they have not been joined together, but probably by the time you read this, they will be!  Also, the instructions for Part 8 mention something about borders and a backing.  No plans yet, but you will all be the first to know when there are developments on that front.

Am I pleased with my colour scheme? Yes, I am.  Naturally, with hindsight and several hours on my Electric Quilt software, I might have changed a few things, but this was a mystery quilt, and I surrendered to the process, and enjoyed it thoroughly.

I always find with scrap quilts that you have to keep your faith in the scraps.  Sometimes a fabric may not feel right, but when mixed in with the rest,  it ends up being the essential 'player' which prevents the quilt looking bland. This was my 'not so sure' fabric.

I wanted to include it because of its whimsical sewing motifs, but it contained a little bit of WHITE, and it's background was insipid in contrast with my other warm toned fabrics. Turns out it is the one adding the much needed depth to the background fabrics.  On the other side of the coin, the 'Sing a Song of Christmas' print by Woodrow Studio, was the one which I had to hold back on.  With its pretty glitter, I wanted it all over, but I held back, and there is just enough to catch the light as the when quilt moves.

'Sing A Song of Christmas' Woodrow Studio

Today, I am also introducing Sparky, the other cat.  Sparky is not as interested as Suzi in the actual process of patchwork and quilting, but once he can see that all the activity is close to becoming a quilt to sleep on, he starts to take a very REAL interest.  There was a time when he would rolling around, rather than sitting on the quilt - I think he is thinking the same thing ...

Sparky on Easy Street

As a reminder, this is only my second machine pieced quilt, and my very first Mystery Quilt. I have really enjoyed the Mystery Quilt process, made all the better by sharing the journey with quilters all around the world.  Knowing that most of you have been working as hard as I have to get this done has really motivated me. I return to work tomorrow, where I know it is going to be very busy, so I have been keen to get as much done on Easy Street as possible. You can see my progress for each part on the links below

Launch - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Borders - Backing

A big THANK YOU to Bonnie for taking the time to plan it and put it together. You have made a lot of people very happy.
PS: Don't forget that Bonnie's instructions will be taken down from her site in June 2013.

Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Quilt - Part 7

"It says Part 8 will be released TOMORROW!"

It is not an understatement to say that it was not only Suzi the Cat who was alarmed at the Rapid  Fire Release of the final parts of Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery Quilt.  By the end of Monday I had completed Part 6, and just before I went to bed I printed off Part 7 -were we in for a shock!  It was too late to do anything, so  I went to bed knowing I had all of Tuesday and Wednesday to catch up.
The next day, joining the Flying Geese and blocks didn't take long, as Bonnie promised, and that allowed us to layout the pieced triangles in our colourway of red, purple, green and tan, for the first time. 

Easy Street Quilt Part 7

 

By 10 o'clock Part 8 had been released and so we had a sneak preview of the next stage.  Bonnie produced the BIG REVEAL.  Her quilt looks lovely, and the green and greys look great together. I was curious to how all these little quilt blocks we have been creating over the past few weeks were going to look in my colourway, so instead of completing my 'homework' for Part 7, I skipped forward to Part 8 to make one each of the two blocks which will make up the whole of the Easy Street Mystery Quilt.  Knowing what lies ahead, I have started to set up some chain piecing that will make lighter work of constructing the quilt.  Mine are in need of a bit of a trim and I don't have one of those HUGE square quilter's rulers - does anyone have any tips on how to square up the blocks without one?

Today I have gone back to complete the previous stage, so I have now officially completed Part 7 of Easy Street, joining the Flying Geese to the blocks, and making both sets of corner triangles, and  all the edge triangles / edge fillers.  From this picture you can see how my colour scheme is turning out.


'The Little Reveal' Easy Street Mystery Quilt

Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Quilt - Part 6

I managed to print off the instructions for Part 6 of Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery Quilt just before I left for a weekend away on Friday, only to read that we are heading for a Rapid Fire Finish! Being away, I have not managed to sort our Part 6 until today. 
It looked easy, but for some reason I have laboured over it for most of the day.  I think this is partly because I have reached the end of my 'black and white' prints, and the mix is more limited, so I have had to introduce some fabric from my Moda 'Seasonal Little Gatherings' 5" Charm Pack, which has taken longer to cut and sew. 
It was the same for the squares, some of my 'greens' were too narrow, so I was making the triangles up from smaller strips.  However, as you can see, I got there evenutally.

Part 6 Easy Street Mystery Quilt

Bonnie has set the release of each part of the mystery quilt for when it is about 11 o'clock in the morning in the UK, so Part 7 has been live for over 7 hours. I have resisted the temptation to look at it before I completed Part 6, so that is where I am heading now.

Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt

One of the Christmas gifts I received was the book 'The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt' by Laurie Aaron Hird. OK, so I had made some heavy hints - but Santa delivered.

I am keen to start up a new hand piecing project, and think that this will be the long-term marathon that I usually enjoy. But then I paused, as I realised that there were several other sampler quilts out there, such as the 'Dear Jane', 1863 Jane A Stickle, 'Sylvia's Bridal Sampler Quilt' by Jennifer Chiaverini, and no doubt a host of others. Here are some basic facts - the numbers, to get you thinking.

'Dear Jane' = 225 blocks

'Farmer's Wife' = 111 blocks

'Sylvia's Bridal' = 140 blocks

What are the other differences? Do you have a preference?

I am guessing there a a very few brave souls who have tackled all three, but I would love to hear about other quilter's experiences of any of these quilts, and what the positive and negatives are. I would be doing it by hand - probably English paper piecing, I would also probably move away from the traditional colour scheme also.

Let me know.

A Quiet Evening with my Pies and Tarts Quilt

Final Stages of the Pies and Tarts Quilt

 

This evening I managed to get back to my English piecing project, my Pies and Tarts Quilt.
The top of this is almost complete, I just have to sew on the 36 half circles to the edge of the quilt.  I dithered over whether they would be necessary, but have decided to go for a more modern look edge to edge quilt.  I have manged about half of these this evening whilst watching the television, and I hope to get the top finished over the holiday period.
Having hosted several parties in the past few weeks, it feels good to be having a quiet Christmas.  I hope everyone has been good, and Santa comes tonight.

Merry Christmas!

Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Quilt - Part 5

I got a little behind last week with Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery Quilt, but today I feel as if I have pulled it back a bit.  Firstly, I caught up on the fabric cutting.  Last week we were assigned to cut squares in our final colour, which for me is PURPLE.  I was itching to work with another colour, but it just didn't happen last week, so it felt like a bit of a treat to dig into my stash and pull out the purples.

145 x 3 1/5" Purple Squares

I noticed that a lot of my fabrics have cherries on them, and I have mixed some more fruit into my quilt, with some juicy blackberries, courtesy of RJR Fabrics Farmer's Market (2008).  There is a cute print 'Crazy Daisies' by Buggy Barn for Henry Glass (Pattern 1394).  They are meant to be daisies, but I think they look more like to intergalactic stars, against this deep purple!  There is also another 'Ditzy Daisy' (1005) print, and a swirly black and purple 'Lava'  pattern (730), both by The Henley Studio for Makower, a few batiks, and a few odd scraps.  Once the purple was done, I cut the red squares, and green squares I needed for Part 5.  The red fabric on top of the pile is called 'Santas Got the Goods' by Diane Knott for Clothworks - I sure hope he has!



Red, Green and Purple Fabric cut ready for Part 5

The construction of this little block was quite simple - if you follow Bonnie's excellent instructions.  My first few attempts were not squaring up very accurately, but once I started to sew along the right side of the line, as Bonnie suggested, they were much better.  I have decided to keep the square in tact, mainly for greater accuracy further along the line, just trimming out the excess of the triangle.  On a previous quilt I was sewing a similar block, but I had to cut both excess triangles because I was using a light fabric and the dark pattern was showing through.

 



Up until now my colour scheme has been looking a bit too festive, which has been concerning me, but with the addition of the purple I think it has been brought back to a 365 days a year quilt.  Do you think I have got away with it?



All my cutting is up to date.  I still have to join up some of the Flying Geese from last week, and to complete the rest of this weeks block.  I also have A LOT of trimming to catch up with.  I am really pleased with my colours and can't wait to start piecing all these parts together.  It has been great fun playing with the pieces to create patterns, and seeing everyone elses ideas. Here is my 'guess' for the Mystery Quilt, using this weeks pieces.