Slow peacock progress

Here is an update

The tail is together.  Work has started on the eyes

hand and machine appliqued

Nothing to do with the peacock, but my first hand applique from Sarah Filke's Craftsy course

The cushion back

Peacock progression

The top is now underway. This post is picture heavy, as I want to document the steps to make this quilt. Not too many words to get in the way.

Initial sketch

Final sketch

Tail fabrics

Scaled to size

Possible layout (and the peacock's body)

Testing without cutting

Materials - cheap grease proof paper, glue and scissors

Glue strips of grease proof paper together. Fold in half lengthwise, using two fold-up tables to hold the fragile paper. Draw the peacock body and then fabric sections of the tail.....orange lines need to be spaced better - so do the subsequent blue lines.

 

Much better spacing! Use a sophisticated ruler to draw the lines

Keep going

Turn over to reveal the other half

Trace over the lines from the other side

Open. Check out the imperfect symmetry.

Test for size

Test again

Decide colour layout and number pieces. Cut sections apart and use as patterns for the fabric

Repeat. Change your mind about the starting colour

Pin before rotary cutting. Remember to include the seam allowance

Keep cutting sections apart, cut fabric and sew together. Keep them in order

Slowly getting there.  More to come.

What do you think?

Work is not enjoyable and DH has been a bit toey about my spending time sewing, so I've taken a craftsy course and have been making a needleturn appliqué bock which will become another cushion.

 

Even so, I finished the tumbling blocks quilt last night and will post it to my nephew today. I'm calling it optic.

The quilting is simple with straight lines for the dark and medium sides and a continuous swirl for the block tops.

I had to tie in the ends in over the course of a week..the three different sized stripes on the back of the quilt were painful on the eyes, hence the quilt name.

The binding is a black and white chevron, although once it has been cut on the bias, you'd never know. I also quilted the label information on the bottom of the quilt, so it's not too obvious. The quilt shrank several inches in the wash and ended up at 93.5 x 88 inches.

The quilt is waving goodbye before it heads off to Canberra.

 

So, back to my niece's peacock quilt. Twelve 16 patch blocks were made last week and this weekend I drew the peacock's body. I'm trying to work on the layout using the blocks I've made so far. The rest will either be long blades in the same fabrics, or pieced blades. I'm not sure that I like the 16 patch blocks.

maybe an option

Too busy

 

I might use this layout. What do you think?

I'm linking up to Sarah at http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/can-i-get-whoop-whoop-its-little-things.html

Finally a Friday flimsy finish

Today I finished the quilt top for my nephew.  It is pretty big and I couldn't get it flat for a good photo.

The top measures 2.56 x 2.33 metres, or 102 x 92 inches.  Now for the quilt back!

The green is simply the sun shining through

From the back

Still making stuff

DH and I have been on a mini road trip for ten days, down to the Hunter Valley in NSW to sample some shiraz. No sewing, as I didn't want a huge hand sewing effort, so I decided to return (albeit briefly) to crocheting. It was so easy to pick it up again. I made 21 granny squares while we were away and have made a couple since we got back on Sunday. Two more to go before I sew all the ends in and join them together for a blanket for my dog.

 

Yes, they look a little ;-) wonky but I'm hoping they'll straighten up when I join them.

 

My nephew's tumbling block quilt is also coming along as the vertical sections are all joined together and I only have seven more seams to pin and sew before it is officially a flimsy. It seems huge, but will end up at about 88 inches wide and about 105 inches high. I had to move it off the design wall as its too big.

 

I've bought large and small black and white fabrics for the back, but can't decide on how to piece it. Maybe pinwheels?

 

My niece isn't giving much away in her preference for styles, but said she liked teal and grey. I wanted to do something a bit more exotic, so drew a concept only drawing for a quilt for her. Very naive (childish.) looking at this stage. Hopefully I'll get better.

I chose some "teal" fabrics online, but most of them appear to be more turquoise in real life. Teal is a difficult colour as it means different things to different people. I'll send her the pics so she can tell me if she likes the colours or not. These are the fabrics I plan to use for

 

the background...pieced, but I'm not sure how yet

The body

And the feather detail

Although I might use separate blues and purples.

 

My scrappy trip around the world blocks haven't increased since I started the tumbling blocks .... They are just an afterthought after all.

 

Black and white and red all over

The spiderweb quilt is bound, but not fully quilted yet. Its been on the sofa for a week but my shoulder has been so sore I can't take the weight of it to finish quilting it yet.

 

So instead, I'm using the cutting instructions for the free craftsy June block to make a quilt for my nephew. I've been waiting for this one to be put up as there are no Y seams in this tumbling block. I upscaled the block to use 6 1/4 inch strips for this quilt, as I'm a bit sick of making quilts with lots of piecing. Haven't decided yet if I want to put a border on the blocks or just leave the tumbling blocks to fall off to the edges.

I'm only at the cutting stage with this one and it is using much less fabric than I was anticipating. I've cut up one yard of each of the fabrics so far. The pale section is actually a small black spot on white and I will only have one red block, just for fun and my nephew's football team colours.

 

I'm also using up the two inch strips left over from the spiderweb quilt to make some scrappy trip around the world blocks, using Bonnie Hunter's tutorial here. I have enough strips for 25 blocks which should finish at 9 inches. Either my strips aren't all two inches wide or my seams are wrong, as some of the blocks are almost 1/2 inch short. Back to my best friend, the unpicker :-P

Update on the scrappy trip around the world blocks. They are not square. I think I'll call it a day and turn the eight blocks into two cushion fronts. The idea of unpicking every seam of 8 x 36 squares gives me the horrors. Life is too short.

Pieced spiderweb kite - simple tutorial

A couple of people have asked how I created the pieced kites for my spiderweb quilt, so I thought I would do a very simple tutorial on how I drafted the pattern.

The quilt's large spiderwebs have been cut from strip sets, while the kites are paper pieced.

To start, get a large piece of lightweight cardboard/heavy paper, that is bigger than the block size you want - I started off with a 12 1/2 inch square, and ended up with a 10 inch finished block.

Draw the size square that you want.

 

Draw diagonal lines from corner to corner.

Measure along one of the diagonal lines from the centre to the corner. I make a small mark on my ruler, as it is not an exact part of an inch.

Measure the same distance along the outside line of the square and mark it.

From the diagonally opposite corner, measure the same distance along the outside of the square and mark it. Both marks should be equally distant from the middle corner of the large half square triangle, with the marks closest to the middle corner.

Draw a line from each mark to the centre of the square. Congratulations, this is your kite. It is important that the triangle you create on either side of the kite has equal sides, as you will need them to be equal to ensure you can make the large spiderweb triangles using strip sets.

At this stage, you can either draw the 1/4 inch seam allowances all around one half of the kite shape, or cut out the kite, trace it onto paper and then draw a 1/4 inch seam allowance around the shape.

I drew the seam allowance on my square. The lines marked A are the kite shape, while the lines marked B are the seam allowances.

Make sure that you also draw a seam allowance for the centre of the kite. You will only use one side of this kite shape - ie that in the green box.

Cut out one side of the kite, including seam allowances.

This is the template you will need to use to create the pieced kites.
I traced this onto a plain piece of paper twice, then turned it over and traced the reverse side twice again, so I had two left and right halves.

Save this one and make copies of it to use as the paper piecing templates. Each one will need to be cut apart (4 template on the photo above). I drew the lines at the point of each corner to give me a starting point for the first strip of fabric in the kites. You will need four left facing half kites and four right facing half kites for each full kite spiderweb, so make sure you make lots of copies.

For the large webs, I used a 45 degree ruler to cut from strip sets that were made the same width as the length of the big triangle from the block template I drew above. I only have a 90 degree ruler with two corners that are 45 degrees, but I imagine any ruler that you use to make kaleidoscope blocks would also work well. The 45 degree angle is the important one.

The width of the strip set should be as wide as the triangle is high, plus 1/4 inch seam allowance.

If anyone is interested, I'll show how to cut/sew the fabric. Let me know. As this is a really quick tutorial, please let me know if the steps aren't clear and I'll update the information.