So, a couple of months ago, I mentioned buying Willyne Hammerstein's book Millefiori Quilts. I first saw it on Tula Pink's instagram, where she was doing a very modern, bright one, with fussy cutting, and very precise piecing. It looks amazing.
I went and bought the book, because, shiny! And I like a challenge and that quilt was very pretty! :)
The one she was making is called The Passacaglia:
Which is also the one that I decided to make. Because it's pretty, it only uses five pieces, and I like the effect. Plus, quite a few of the other blocks in the quilt could easily be done in more conventional quilting methods - ie. a template, a rule, a rollercutter, and a straight-stitch sewing machine.
I got printouts of the pieces, cut them out, and picked my fabric - Reese Scannell shot cottons.
Currently, I have an hour-long commute from home to work, changing trains twice. It's awkward trying to open my computer every time, and this is something that whiles away the 15 minutes of a train trip between station A and station B.
I actually got a lot of pieces done while on the train:
And then there was the laying out:
Only I decided I didn't like the centre star - not enough contrast - so I ended up sewing yet another one for this combination:
Apologies for the bad lighting, we've just gone out of daylight saving and I work most hours that the light is out, so my light sources are not exactly reliable.
The interesting thing about these templates is that they're very much not limited to just the pattern of the Passacaglia:
I've just seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier this last week, and have been thinking about crafting a set of mug coasters around the emblems in the movie.
Those of you who follow my blog regularly will remember the SHIELD logo I made for my Melinda May cosplay - they would work nicely enough as coasters with a little bit of backing! One for Maria Hill and one for Nick Fury - excellent! An hourglass is easy peasy for the Black Widow emblem.
And using the Passacaglia pieces it's possible to make both The Winter Soldier's scarlet star on steel grey, and Captain America's star - made here in Kona White and one of the Kona blues (possibly Pacific?):
And then the only difficult one is the Falcon, since they didn't show an emblem for Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie's character).
The things we do for geekitude...
Meanwhile, I'm learning all about needles and which ones are better for which fabrics, which cotton thread, and which tasks. It's quite a learning curve!
Nearly one Rosette down...um...I don't know how many to go! *eeps*
edit: sorry, this post is kind of a WIP in and of itself. Will be finishing it later tonight.
Thank you!! The picture of you chain-basting the rose pentagons was revelatory. Quite possibly life-changing, definitely life-improving. It had not occurred to me that chain-style assembly could be applied to hand-sewing, and it will make everything so much more streamlined. And organized. I start resenting having to fish around for the scissors after each little piece, while finding somewhere safe to stow my needle, and now I won't have to. And I worry that I'm misplacing a tiny triangle, which will be hard to do if it is strung together with its companions. One question: Do you tend to knot each of the pieces at the start and end of the basting (that is, does one string of pieces have 1 knot, 2 knots, or many knots)? I tried enlarging your photo, but my computer just turned it into fuzziness. Thanks - Mariko (instacam4mariko)
ReplyDelete