WIP Wednesday: The One With Quite A Variety Of Stuff

I didn't get my WIP Wednesday in last week - too many things going on, too much happening, not enough time to write up a post.

This week, things are no less crazy, but I'm a little better prepared. :D

Finished

The Snowflake Block Tutorial!

Design by Madame Parfait
Tutorial by Sel @ The Mad Quilter

I really have to make an entire quilt out of these. They may be tricksy fiddly to make, but they really are stunners.

My Sewing Space!

I finally have a sewing desk with the ironing board right beside me! I have a cutting table with lots of light! A fabric stash! A haberdashery and 'other things' space!

And...*drum roll*...a design wall!

Not a lot of space on it, so I'll have to be judicious about what goes up there. And it needs better stapling down along the top and sides and bottom. I ran out of staples along the way.

WIPs

Father's Day gift for Stepfather

My mum asked me to make a couple of body pillow covers for the stepdad a couple of years ago. ...and I only just started on them in the last week.

The goal is to have them done for Father's Day on Sunday. (In Australia, Father's Day is in September, which I rather like.) Although, technically, our Father's Day celebration will be on Saturday since it's easier on our schedules.

I'm not convinced of the triangles as a suitable block to work with the flowers-and-fans. I borrowed a Marti Mitchell quilt template off Penny Poppleton (and had to return it so she could get her Modern Patchwork "Honey" quilt for Greta's Handcraft Centre done before Saturday!) Maybe they should have been smaller? *grimace* I hate the indecision of making something like this.

Still deciding about whether I want to quilt it or not... And then there's the question: to add a ruffle, or not to add a ruffle?

The Stash

Sorting, arranging, displaying...

By colour...

And collection...

Oh! And look what arrived this week: Mendocino Mermaids!

I blame Penny and Pinky for introducing me to Mendocino Mermaids. Yes. Yes, I do.

I think these will be used a la Quilting Modern's "To The Point" quilt. Because that's a wonderful, effective way to work with scraps.

Other Things

The first meeting of the North and Eastern Sydney MQG was small and intimate and cheerful.

But there are big things moving in the works. Big Things!

There's another sew-in this Friday night, City Extra, Circular Quay, from 5pm. If you’re in the area, we'd love to see you there.

And that's it from me. What about you? Don't forget to head over to the linky party and leave your links, check out what other people are working on, and comment for the love!

Snowflake Block: Part 3 - Putting It All Together

Tutorial for the Snowflake Block
(a.k.a. Rainbow Blossom block)
Designed by Madame Parfait
Tutorial by Sel @ Mad Quilter's Disease

Master Post
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 --

I apologise for the lateness of this tutorial - I know I said I'd post it on Monday, but I spent the weekend making up a second block to check my instructions and it completely fell apart. However, I had no more time to spend to unpick and remake it on the weekend, and the week has been pretty hectic until now! Thanks for bearing with me!

Part 3 Assembling the Block

At the end of the last section, you should've been left with the 6 segments for your snowflake block.

We're going to attach three together for one half, three together for the other half, and then join the two.

Lay out the pieces in formation, as in the pic above.

Take one of the remaining ¾" strip and lay the bottom centre piece, and the bottom left piece and lay them on top, lining up the edges. Pin and sew.

Do the same with the top centre piece and the top right piece.

Press seams towards the white fabric.

Now, this is where things get a little tricky! We actually want the finished points of the triangle segments to be a bit up or down from each other, which complicates things. I originally designated ⅛", but you might have to do a bit of eyeballing here!

You may also want the unpicker handy! (I certainly needed it: if some of the pics show a row of needleholes...uh, yeah, that's when I had to unpick it all and redo it.)

Take the bottom centre piece and the bottom left pieces, and lay them exactly over each other, good sides together.

Line up the sides perfectly:

Now, move the top piece down and to the right (the direction of the arrow) so that the right edges of the segments remain aligned, but the left edges have a ⅛" gap:

Sew the right-side (aligned) edges together. Press the seams towards the white.

Ideally, if your seams are accurate, the 'branches' off the middle stripe should be at the same level.

As you can tell, my seams are not terribly accurate!

Attaching the bottom left segment is much the same process.

Line up the left side edges and more or less line up the right side with the edge of the white divider stripe. (I say 'more or less' because my segment doesn't have a perfectly straight edge.)

Now move the top piece up and to the right (the direction of the arrow) so that the left edges of the segments remain aligned, but the right edges have a ⅛" gap. It will be harder to see the ⅛" because the line of the divider stripe on the bottom piece will be hidden under the top piece.

Sew the left-side (aligned) edges together and press seams towards the white.

Now you have half a hexagon!

Repeat the process for the three 'top' pieces of the block: simply rotate them so they're now the 'bottom' pieces (points facing up).

Take the remaining ¾" strip, line up one of the half-hexagons along the edge, sew, and press the seam towards the white.

Take the half-hexagon without the strip, lay it on top of the half-hexagon with the strip, and check that the points are more or less vertically in line with each other. Sew, and press seam to the white.

TA-DA! We're done! One snowflake block, all stunning and ready to go in your next quilt!

Madame Parfait actually made it a square block by adding extra white fabric around the edges, and that's certainly an option. However, I rather like it as a hexagonal block - imagine a whole quilt of these!

You could certainly ‘production line’ quite a few of these if you got yourself organised. I might try it someday when I have a bit more time than right now!

--

I hope that my directions have been clear - if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask!

Finally, I've created a Flickr group for all blocks and quilts made from my tutorials. (Okay, so I only have the one at present, but I'm working on it!)

WIP Wednesday: the one with no actual sewing

This week involved no actual sewing; although I got my sewing space sorted out and am now populating my nice new IKEA Expedit shelf with my stash!

Please excuse the mess!

Mmm, stash! (That's not all of it, by the way. I've got a large-size suitcase full of random FQs and my batik collection!

Sewing desk and ironing board!

I think I'll put the cutting table behind me, making a 'U' shaped workspace.

And behind me as I sit at my desk, my haberdashery shelves full of batting and non-quilting fabric, clothes patterns and odds and ends, books, and spare sheets for quilt backs!

Still very disorganised - I have to work out exactly how I'm going to divide up all these stashy bits. And how I'm going to use up what I've already got.

*lays down the law* No more fabric purchases until I've finished another two quilt tops!

In the meantime, I haven't been entirely quiet on the quilting front. I've been putting together a tutorial for Madame Parfait's awesome and amazing 'Rainbow Blossom' block (which I renamed the Snowflake block).

Parts 1 and 2 are posted, but Part 3 is giving me trouble and may not be around until next Monday. I apologise for the delay, but life is being a right and proper pain in the butt. (How dare it interfere with my sewing?)

Also, for any Sydney folks who happen to be reading this, the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild has set up official meeting times for the rest of 2012.

It's more like the 'Northern and Eastern Sydney MQG' now, since there's a Wollongong MQG and a Greater Western Sydney MQG - which is all to the awesome since Sydney is a horrendously sprawly city and trying to find somewhere that everyone could meet every month was one of the problems with organising the Sydney MQG chapters in the first place.

Anyway, the first meeting is this weekend from 10am at the City Extra restaurant in Circular Quay.

And now it’s time to par-tay over at the Linky Party!

Snowflake Block Tutorial: Part 2 - Assembling the segments

Tutorial for the Snowflake Block
(a.k.a. Rainbow Blossom block)
Designed by Madame Parfait
Tutorial by Sel @ Mad Quilter's Disease

Master Post
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Part 2: Assembling the Segments

So, at this stage of the block, you should have 18 'paint chip' pieces:
6 x 1-diamond pieces (3 in warm colours, 3 in cool)
6 x 2-diamond pieces (3 in warm colours, 3 in cool)
6 x 3-diamond pieces (3 in warm colours, 3 in cool)

Take the 6x 1-diamond pieces and lay them along the remaining 1½" white strip, lining up the edges, good side down, so close that they're almost touching.

Pin and sew (or just sew and skip the pinning). Press seams towards the white strip.

Lay out the strip, good side up, and cut each 'paint chip' off the white strip. You should have six roughly-diamond shaped pieces, each with a coloured point. (Only five are shown below.)

Don't worry if the white sections aren't full diamonds - it's background. Most of it will be cut off when we trim the block down. The coloured block is the important part.

Take the 2-diamond and 3-diamond 'paint chips' and lay them on top of the ¾" background strips, good sides together. Aim to orient them in the same direction that you pointed the 1-diamond pieces on the 1½" white strip. (If you don't, it's not a crisis - it just makes it that much neater)

Lay out the strip, good side up. Cut each 'paint chip' off the strip and press the seams towards the white fabric.

Now for each segment, you should have three 'paint chips' like so:

These go together to form a single segment. We make six of these which then assemble into the full block.

This is the part where I found things got a little tricky. In order to get the diamonds to match up, when sewing these together, I found it easiest to line up the diamond points in a straight line, then move the top piece over so the edges were together.

Start with the 3-diamond paint chip and the 2-diamond paint chip:

It might take a bit of pinning and folding back to ensure that your lines are straight! (This is why accurate piecing is A Good Thing!)

This may not be the neatest way of doing it, but it was the only way I could get it lining up. If you can work out a neater way of doing it, don't hesitate to let me know!

This time, press the seams towards the colours. Then repeat with the 1-diamond block, lining it up with the white-strip edge of the 2-diamond block.

Repeat for all six sets of paint chips.

When you're done, you should have six segments like so:

And now it's starting to look like our Snowflake block!

I'll post Part 3 on Wednesday, assuming I don't get bogged down in real life.

If you have any questions, or if I haven't made everything clear, please let me know if the comments and I will do my best to answer them.

Snowflake Block Tutorial: Part 1 - Cutting and Piecing

Tutorial for the Snowflake Block
(a.k.a. Rainbow Blossom block)
Designed by Madame Parfait
Tutorial by Sel @ Mad Quilter's Disease

Master Post

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Part 1: Cutting and Piecing

You will need

1 FQ of Background Fabric
6x 1½ "x 20" strips in varying colours
(Note: In this case I used a white background with six colours: deep orange, light orange, yellow, green, aquamarine, and turquoise. However, the original 'Rainbow Blossom' block design used only 3, in which case use 1x 'centre colour', 2x 'middle colour' and 3x 'outer colour'.)

Cut the Background colour FQ into:
12x ¾" x 22" strips
3x 1½ " x 22" strips (if you're using only 3 colours, you may need 4 of these)

All seams are ¼" - the more accurate, the better!

Step One. Decide which colours are going where. With six colours to choose from, I selected three warm and three cool colours, then graded them from lighter (the inner panels) to darker (outer panels).

Take the strips for the outermost colours, and sew each one (good side) together with one 1½" x 22" background strip. Press seams towards the colour side.

Take the strips for the inner colours, and sew each one (good side) together with one ¾" x 22" background strip. Press seams towards the colour side.

It's not necessary, but it helps to keep the colour fabric on the bottom and the background fabric on top, that way you're always sewing the strips to the correct side.

Step Two. Take the outermost colours (sewn to the 1½" wide background strip) and a 60˚ ruler (or rectangular ruler with a 60˚ line) and slice 3x 1½" wide pieces from the one-colour strips:

Put these pieces aside.

Take the remaining lengths of the outermost colours, and sew each one (good side) together with one of the 2nd tier colours, making sure that the sequence of fabrics is white, colour, white, colour.

Press the new seams towards the colours, too.

Neaten up the left edge of the strip, and slice 3x 1½" wide pieces from the two-colour strips.

Repeat with the innermost colours: sew together, press new seams in same direction as existing seams, cut 3x 1½" wide pieces from the three-colour strips.

Now you should have 18 strips that look pretty much like paint chips!

6 x 1-diamond pieces (3 in warm colours, 3 in cool)
6 x 2-diamond pieces (3 in warm colours, 3 in cool)
6 x 3-diamond pieces (3 in warm colours, 3 in cool)

And that's the strip-piecing part done!

I'll post about putting the pieces together on Monday!

If you have any questions, or if I haven't made everything clear, please let me know if the comments and I will do my best to answer them!