More. Candy.

For the next part of the quilt I designed for the MQG challenge, we’ll that is now past due. But I really like the design and the Color palette so I’m carrying on. This part  is a big sort of pine cone paper pieced block. I’m using the fold flip method.  So, as I watched part of the 18 inning (!!)World Series game, I took the time to fold on each line before ever sewing a stitch.

First stitches and pieces of fabric.

Beginning to see the point(hah) of all this…

All three sections pieced but not sewn together.

Woohoo 🥳 done! And now for 3 more of these babies…

Y.E.S. Coat blocks

 

I got to have a very lovely sew day at friend Mary’s house, she let me use her BabyLock machine. It sewed very smoothly and was easy to figure out.

I got a 7” paper pieced block of Y and an S done. 

Still debating whether to make these 3” Y.E.S. Blocks or not.

Selvedge Candy

 Printing out and taping together enormous paper piecing patterns that I'll be using for a new quilt for the MQG challenge. Hope it works out!

This is quite a change from the quilt I was considering making last month. I was thinking about the lovely selvedges and how to use them on the quilt's surface. Glad I reminded myself, and now to think about if that would work with this design...A possible title would then be "Selvedge Candy".

 

Square In Squares Done

 And now for some actual I-sewed-something-content!

I was really pleased with how easy it was to make all the square in a square blocks for the Old Town mystery quilt with the new method of paper piecing I've been using lately. Here's some process pictures to somewhat explain.

When you're done, you won't have sewn through your paper at all. I did just a teeny tiny bit, you can see where I repaired the paper at the bottom.

When you're all done sewing, you just peel that finished block off of the paper. Easy peasy, no picking out all the paper bits in the seam lines!

So far this method works best for me on fairly simple paper piecing blocks.  To break down the steps:

Your first step is to fold the paper back exactly on the line, like in the picture above. 

Second, you lightly glue stick the paper pattern to the wrong side of the fabric so it won't shift around.

Third, sew right up against the folded paper edge. But try your best not to sew into the paper. You can see a bit of perforation where I did a little of that, but it's okay. 

Fourth, unstick the paper when done, and re-use your pattern for the next block.

This method is just a teensy bit less accurate than normal paper piecing where you're sewing directly on the seam line. Thus, it doesn't work quite as well when you're assembling a bunch of small sections together. But in this case it worked out just fine. Also, I printed out and used just two paper patterns to make 25 blocks.

Almost done, 18 out of 25 completed.

This one is probably my favorite fabric/color combination.

That's it! They're all done now.

Squares In Squares

 

I guess I'm just randomly working on the clues in the Old Town mystery quilt, jumping from one to the other as I feel like it. These are square in a squares that I made with paper piecing flip and sew method  not the usual tear off the paper method. They came out very precisely.

Here's the rest of the combinations for all the remaining blocks I have yet to make all laid out.

There's a pretty big variety of color choices and fabric patterns. Maybe too much variety? We shall see.

Not sure why so much yellow ended up in my choices as it's supposed to be coral/melon, but I'm going with it anyway. A little yellow in a quilt is always good for moving the eye around.

To The 99th

 

Well it's down to choosing fabrics for the last three Pantone Project postcards that I've received. A total of 99 postcards have gotten to me from friend Jaye, some were delayed, nearly destroyed, many were ink stamped, etc. One is in transit some where. Maybe it'll show up at some point. Hopefully before we're ready to put together the quilt tops.

Tah-dah, The last three blocks for this project, down to the 99th.

A closeup of the blocks and the fabric choices I ended up going with.

And now over to a really great group of blocks that friend Jaye handed over at the retreat. A huge bunch, wow! That whole column of Ribbon blocks is so great looking, could maybe make an interesting border? I like the white diamond created by the two Peaky & Spike blocks next to each other.

And more from Jaye, I like the colors in this grouping a whole lot. In the top row, the Sliver block plus the Ribbon block is a super interesting shape.

More YES

On the last day of retreat I worked on making more Y.E.S. Paper pieced blocks for my YES coat. These are printed out from EQ8 on newsprint. I couldn’t do the fold and flip paper piecing method because my glue stick was no longer glue-y.

Give a Y, give me an E!

 Just what I wanted, easy to not really see the YES in the blocks but it still is distinct enough if you really look.👀 

What an awesome retreat, really enjoyed it and getting a chance to know more of the bamq people. I tried my best, but I overdid  it and my knee is very unhappy with me. A good reminder of why I’m having surgery.

All Four 4 I's Blocks

 

According to my original design, I'm moving onto working with grellow-ish, weird yellow/green and purple for the other half of my quilt. Name change of this quilt: The 4 I's (Ideation Interpretation Iteration Implementation) 

I was really really pleased with the first block that I made out of all of my hand-dyes.

Honestly, I'd like this one all on its own. 

I think it works pretty well with the other half, here it is next to the solids version of the blue and orange.

And here's how the print version of the grellow/purple looks with the other three.

Now to decide on the the final form, and add the sashing. I like the way this pattern works with four blocks right up against each other, so I may change that from the original design, and just have a larger exterior border(s) to make the final quilt 24"x36".

Second of Four

After yesterday's successful test run with the all prints version, I dove into making another in all solids. I visually tested out all the solids options that I had and came up with this final choice.

Here's how it looks all sewn up with the print version.

And here they are arranged the opposite way. I think I like this slightly more, but I haven't sewn them together yet. I'm going to make the other two and see how they look best all together.

I like seeing how the intersection of the prints and the solids go.

A kite appears!

Just for fun, I put the two blocks together horizontally and I really really like this arrangement!

The other way around is not as effective, imo.

First of the I's

 
I'm starting in on making the first block of four for the 3 I's quilt for the BAMQ group exhibit. Yes, I'm paper-piecing these enormous blocks, and yes, it's more than a little bit silly, but I think it'll work for me.

The first piece went together well. I really like these two prints together. I'm glad that I wasn't trying to match the directions of the blue print. I think it works out to be more visually interesting to see each of the three blue pieces go in slightly different directions.
Here's how the three pieces of the block look before sewing them all together. Really happy with the prints that I chose, they're all busy and active in their own ways, but not overly so. I'm looking forward to seeing the contrast of another block being all solids.

And here's how it looks all sewn up, pretty cool, I think! I'm really liking the direction and movement in this block, kind of like the FedEx logo, etc. The giant paper piecing isn't terrible since it isn't tiny like the tiny Trinket blocks.

Dragon Assembled

 

All the pieces of the dragon were ready to sew together.

And tah-dah, there she is! This is the biggest paper pieced thing I've ever made and it turned out pretty well.

The messy back with all the paper to remove.

As I'd printed the paper foundation papers out on the special newsprint paper, I thought using the water pens woul

At first it seemed pretty helpful.

But then it was too much water all at once and the paper kind of went blah all over the place. Probably would work better if it had been used on regular printer paper. 

A final kind of still damp picture of Sylva.

I really like how the teeth turned out.

The back is very cool looking without the paper.

Now to figure out what to put her on and quilt her. Maybe a tote bag or something?