Paper Piecing Sedona Star Month 2

If you're wondering where I posted my picture of my completed Month 1 blocks, the answer is that they aren't finished yet!  I am still experimenting with my turned applique by machine technique.  In the mean time, I went ahead with paper piecing Month 2, and showed my practice block yesterday.  The practice block was made with the real fabrics, so you can see where I am going with it.

As I promised yesterday, here is how I altered the Month 2 template to accomodate paper piecing:

I left the image fairly large, so if you click the photo you can see all the details.  Here's a description of what I did:

1. I assembled the template from plain copy paper and drew on all my revisions.  Then I copy each quadrant onto the Ricky Tims' Stable Stuff.  The edges were trimmed down so that each side, including the centre seam, fits onto just two pages.
2. I pieced it in two sub-units, sewed the centre seam, and then added the appliques and outer border.  You can see that I extended one side of the centre point both up and down.  I am indebted to TQS member FLAero52 for this idea.  She did it slightly differently, but the sub-unit idea is key.  I added a cutting line on either side of the seam, mainly to remind me that it IS the seam.
3. I extended the corners of the grey background grid out to the edges, and also added a trim line parallel to the grid on all four sides.  This is to speed the assembly of the templates.  I trim the copies at the trim line, butt the edges against my Olfa mat, and line up the corner extensions at the 0" and 16" marks on the mat.  Then I know for sure that the assembled template is exactly to scale. 
4. I also added some small lines across the seam line at precise right angles to serve as pin markings when I sew the centre seam.  That seam has to be dead on, or the final shape of the block may be distorted.
5. The background pieces 4a and 4b are an awkward shape.  Rather than using a very large rectangle and then cutting away most of the fabric, I traced the shapes onto wax paper (freezer paper) to use as pattern pieces.  This allows me to cut the angle for the seam so that the fabric will flip up exactly into the right position.  Yes, it IS tricky.  But it works great once you get it.  Please let me know in the comments if you want to see a picture, and I will take one once I get going again.

I ordered this cute iron from Keepsake Quilting today, and the pressing surface too.  With my small sewing space, I think it will be a better solution than a full size iron.  Maybe there was a silver lining to my misadventure yesterday!

Sedona Star Month 2

Since December, when I decided to commit to the TQS 2012 BOM, Sedona Star, I have been debating how to handle the points in the Month 2 blocks:

The instructions call for raw edge, fusible applique, but I don't much like raw edges, or fusibles either.  My applique plan for the quilt has been to use Beth Ferrier's technique for turned applique by machine.  I have a comprehensive review of that technique coming up! 

The centre point on the Month 2 block is very sharp, though.  I know I could do it by hand, because you would sew one side first, and then stuff all the seam allowances against it as you stitched the second side.  But there are nine large blocks!  I thought about machine sewing part of the point and hand sewing just the end, but it seemed very complicated.

I briefly considered converting the block to paper piecing, but I saw problems with that.  However, one of the other TQS members, FLAero52, did it, so I was inspired to try too.  It is NOT EASIER.  There is a lot to figure out, and I did it a little differently than FLAero52.  Here is my practice block:

There are a few problems with it, but they are fixable, so this is how I'm going to proceed. I am very happy with the points.  Another benefit of paper piecing is that the dark blue background fabric won't show through the light appliques.  I love that fabric - it's actually a blender from the Elvis on Tour collection!  The white dots are spotlights.  :)

I'll show you how I revised the template to accomodate paper piecing tomorrow.  For now, though, here's some of the problems that I need to address:

• My white fabric applique at the base is fairly sheer, and the yellow and orange fabrics show through, so I need to trim the seam allowances from the points.  Also, the "Template F" lettering on the template shows through, so I will have to mask that from future copies.  The placement of that applique is also a little off, but that is easily corrected next time.
• You can see a dark shadow on the right side of the top point.  That is the blue fabric showing through the light green, where it got caught in the centre seam.  I will have to trim those blue seam allowances before I sew the two sub-units together.
• The yellow fabric from the centre point also goes too far up in the centre seam, which adds bulk and which will make it hard to applique the final dot.  I just have to trim it before I stitch the seam.
• I used my Clover plastic pressing tool to press the seams, but for this block I think a hot iron will be better.  The long background pieces are a little loose, and so are the long light green pieces.  And what did I do today?  I broke my iron!!  Disaster!!  So it will be a few days before you see any more of these.

Second Run at Redwork

I recently showed you all the problems I'd had with redwork in the past.  I'm glad to report that I think I have them all solved!  I've been going full stream ahead.  This is just one day's work while catching up on Coronation Street:

This is all stem stitch.  I have been debating between stem stitch or back stitch, but what I've found is that stem stitch is a lot easier.  It is hard to get a continuous line with back stitch, while with stem stitch if you miss the previous hole you cannot really tell.  I may still use back stitch for some of the fine details, like the fingers.  I am finding, though, that just shortening the stitch handles the details well too.

The biggest difference, however, has been working the embroidery in hand rather than in the hoop.  It is so much easier!!  I find I can get the tip of the needle to just pop up in the previous hole when I am working in hand, so my stitching is faster and much more accurate.  There is no issue with puckering either.  I am planning to take my Cottage Garden UFO out of the hoop as well, to see if that gets easier too.

And the back is now a thing of beauty, but I forgot to take pictures of it!  Next time.


Related Posts:

Previous redwork efforts - Sweet Hearts

Cottage Garden UFO - 10,000 Hours and Deliberate Practice

Yoyoing Right Along

I may not have been blogging for the past few days, but I've still been sewing!  I'm down to the last 19 yoyos on the yoyo quilt from the cover of the June 2011 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting.  I started with 38 strips appliqued with 10 or 11 yoyos each.  Now I've joined them into 19 long strips, and all that's left is to applique the last yoyos over the join and sew the strips together:

I am trying to be as random as possible.  It really is an act of willpower not to organize the colours!  My only rule as I was appliquing the yoyos was to not put two of the same fabric right beside each other.  Actually, though, I am a little sorry I did that now, because a truly random sample would have given clusters of fabrics that would have added interest.  Too late now.  But, for the rest I am going to allow the random universe full reign!

I have a couple more observations on the construction of the quilt to share.  First, for the background fabric, the pattern suggests a batik with a small repeat.  The need for a small repeat is obvious, but I am also glad that I went with a batik rather than a print.  These strips are handled a lot as you are appliquing the yoyos, but because the batik has such a high thread count there has been very little fraying.  So I would say that a batik is a necessity here.  Because the yoyos are so lumpy, there is no way that you could cut the strips wide and trim them down later.

The second thing to watch out for is how you deal with the thread tails from the yoyos.  In the allpeoplequilt.com demo video, which seems to be gone from the site now, they suggested that you just bring the thread tails down through the centre and to the back of the yoyo.  This turned out to be poor advice.  This is what has happened to several of my early yoyos:

The stiff hand quilting thread has a tendency to pop up out of the yoyo.  Later on I started to pull the thread tails back down inside the fabric on the same side as the knot, and there has not been any problem with those tails.  I will have to get myself a self-threading needle to fix the threads that have come loose.  Fortunately, it is not a big disaster, just an annoyance.

Hopefully it will not be too much longer before this one is ready for quilting too!


Related posts:

December 2011 - first post - Yoyo Alchemy

December 2011 - yoyos finished - 409 Yoyos!

February 2012 - Return of the Yoyos

Sedona Star Month 1 Points

After so much time at the sewing machine over the past few days, my back was really complaining, so I've been taking it slower again.  I've been doing the log cabin points a few at a time:

Four more to go!  You'll be seeing a lot more of these particular fabrics as the quilt progresses.  An unexpected benefit of using solid fabrics is that there is no wrong side, which makes the paper piecing even easier.  I hope, though, that it does not make me sloppy once I progress to prints later in the quilt.

It's been really fun so far.  The finished points have a satisfying weight to them, with the fairly thick Kaufman Kona Solid fabric, and the Ricky Tims Stable Stuff on the back.  I've been using 1/4" seams too.  The instructions call for 1/8" seams, but as a new paper piecer I just didn't feel comfortable with that.  If I pay for it later, so be it.

Many people have also mentioned the somewhat frugal cutting instructions for the quilt.  Because I was planning to use a wider seam allowance, I just measured the widths right off the template.  I ended up adding 1/4" to the width, and about 1/2" to the length for these pieces - it may have been more for some of the others.  I have lots of fabric, so I am not worried about running out!

Beginning to Paper Piece Sedona Star

I was very excited to actually start sewing Sedona Star!  I began with the ring on Month 1, because that looked the easiest to me:

The light colour here is actually this light purple fabric.  The camera made it blue.  But the piecing went really well.  I very nearly sewed the two ends wrong sides together, even after reminding myself about it!  But fortunately I realized my mistake before actually sewing it.  I was so encouraged by this initial success that I moved on to the centre star:

I realized a few things when I was about halfway through this.  The first was that my colour scheme is not going to leave me any room for error!  I deliberately chose the high contrast scheme to show off the more difficult parts of the quilt.  I wasn't thinking though, that it meant I am going to have to do those parts really well.  Anyway, so far, so good.  I'll have to be super careful with those points when I sew the two circles together.

The second issue is that the dark fabrics really show lint!  I can see that this is going to be a problem for the lifetime of the quilt.  It looks much worse in the photo because the flash picked out the light particles.  I wondered where all that lint was coming from, and I realized that it is from the Ricky Tims Stable Stuff.  It is shedding tiny, shiny, polyester fibres as I work with it.

On the TQS forum Margo suggested that I can wash the finished flimsy to remove all the Stable Stuff before I quilt it.  Now that I've seen how these fibres stick to the fabric, I don't think that will be an option.  For now, I'll just use a good lint roller before I take any final photos!

Otherwise, though, the Stable Stuff is a dream to work with.  It is much easier to use for paper piecing than the vellum was.  It makes a very clean fold when you are cutting the seam allowance.  The vellum didn't always want to fold along the line, but with the Stable Stuff there is no problem.  And because the Stable Stuff is more like Pellon interfacing, it doesn't remember all the fold lines, so you can wrinkle it up all over and it still goes back to lying flat when you're done.

When I lay the two parts together, it looks like this:

My intention with the centre of the quilt was to keep it simple, and I am satisfied with the result so far.  The main focus of the quilt will be the applique blocks we're doing this summer, so I didn't want to do too much here.  I'll show you one or two of the log cabin points tomorrow, and then it'll be on to the applique circles!

Preparing the Templates for Sedona Star

Well, I had a busy weekend.  I finally started Sedona Star!  Hard to believe, I know.  :)

Saturday night I put together the templates.  What a tricky job!  I have a feeling this was probably the most fiddly bit of the whole quilt.  But, if they are right, everything will go smoothly, so I didn't rush it.

The grey gridlines were a huge help.  I ended up cutting the templates just a millimetre or two away from the outside gridline, and butting them up against the edge of my Olfa mat, which I used as a ruler.  This allowed me to make sure that the overall measurement was 12" for the inside template, and 18" for the outside one.

I am using the Ricky Tims Stable Stuff for my templates.  As designer Sarah Vedeler suggested, I used Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 in the 1/4" width to hold them together.  It was pretty convenient to use, and held the pages together well.  Before I tried it I was worried about it adding bulk to the quilt. I found, however, that there is almost nothing to it, so added weight is not a worry.

There were no gridlines for Template 2, which is the ring with the appliqued circles.  To make sure that it would fit properly inside the outer ring, I used the assembled Template 3 as a guide:

I carefully lined up the solid stitching lines on each template (not the cutting lines!).  Template 3 has convenient marks for each section of Template 2, so it is easy to lay it right in place.  I worked my way around the ring, ironing each section to the previous one as I went:

I am not ironing the two layers together, just using the bottom layer as a guide.  Once it was finished, I knew it would fit into the outer ring perfectly.

Hopefully, with these tricks in my toolbox, assembling the templates in future months will be less painful.  Fortunately, the paper piecing on Sunday went really well.  I'll show you tomorrow!