Baltimore Album block 23

One of my favourite blocks - and made with one of my favourite greens - so all good fun to make! I am not a "hearts" girl so I made the hearts green in this block to make them less of  a feature.

I did the whole block using my usual back-basting and normal needleturn applique. But I have just read on Repro Quilt Lover blog that parts of this particular block might be easier done in reverse needleturn applique and I can see that. The narrow parts on the petals could more easily be made very narrow that way I think. Interesting....

I have experimented (rather randomly!) with reverse applique in parts of my Baltimore Album. Thought it might aid with layering and add some depth - centres of buds etc - and found it very useful. It combines well with back-basting but adds an extra step. You first back-baste the under layer in place, and then the top layer, prior to reverse applique.

I feel a bit nervous showing such close-ups of my applique - could have taken a wee bit more care with stitches and thread colour but never mind! These are all closeups of different earlier finished blocks.

the pink centres in bud are reverse appliqued

pink in petal area is reverse applique

reverse applique yellow in centre of  knot and in curved bows, but not on wider ribbon ends

 

Do have a look at the blog I mentioned because Taryn shows her beautiful block there - looks wonderful quilted!

I've now finished 5 blocks of my Carolina Lily quilt and still going strong...

Little hexagon purse

Little Hexagon Purse ( Brigitte Giblin pattern) in Smithsonian green fabrics is finished and I have to say I think it is pretty cute! I don't think I'll bother with a chain or ribbon. It will be a handy clutch to transport small bits of sewing and a chain might be a nuisance.  

Lined in cream linen

That's it - short and sweet today.

                                             Happy sewing!

Lots of yellow and green

My Carolina Lily quilt has become a production line  - lily flowers at various construction stages

Pile of bias stem, and lots of English paper piecing

a few finished blocks

Meanwhile, I may have contracted yellow-and-greenitis (I am sure there is such a thing) ... because I couldn't resist starting another little yellow and green project. Some time ago I got the pattern/hardware for Brigitte Giblin's Little Hexagon Purse.

The bag pattern and some of the hexagons I cut out

I have long had a much-treasured little (really little) collection of Smithsonian yellow and greens. Then I recently topped these up with a lovely purchase from Sherri. At about the same time ( lovely coincidence ) Kathie very kindly helped me out with some green that I had run out of for my Baltimore Album quilt. I can spare a very tiny bit of that. So now my collection looked like this:

Smithsonian greens and yellows

It seemed just the right project to use these fabrics - and as they are all only small pieces it needed a small project. The purse will be made entirely of half inch English paper pieced hexagons. Here is one side completed:

Now it seems I am working on three EPP projects at once - can't have too much of a good thing?! There are stars ( Mary Leggett's star bouquet quilt), the Carolina Lily and the Hexagon purse. 

Just to show the comparative sizes of the project pieces...

There has been quite a lot of yellow and green in the garden too!

Golden Ash

Happy Mother's Day for tomorrow :)

Another Baltimore Album block and other updates

Baltimore Album block 22 is done - a bold and wonky block. I feel I have to announce this every time for those that quite like wonky - and an apology to those who don't!

Carolina Lily quilt update:
 In my last post I moaned about my difficulty with curving the half inch bias for the stems (ugly bunching happening - am not going there).
The back basting applique is working very well for me as an alternative. Here's how I've been doing it...hope it doesn't bore you silly but I love seeing how other people do things - and the more pictures the better.

Marking the back of block and pinning fabric underneath - sorry bit dark

Basting the applique fabric to block background - from the back

Needleturn applique as basting removed - on the front

Rest of applique pieces pinned ready to sew down too

I can't believe how quickly these centre blocks are coming together now (they are rather large at nearly 12 inches across) but that's fine - won't get bored.  

Am still going on the Star Bouquet quilt (version of Mary Leggett's)  - much smaller pieces there but it is growing!

A few new stars added

                   

Carolina Lily blocks - on trial

Fabric decision made! Here is the first block of my Carolina Lily quilt:

The print is the favourite

How did I come to this decision? After deliberating quite long enough about fabric choice I made two trial blocks in different yellows. Thanks so much for the comments and ideas received - this was a great solution for me! The yellow print stood out more than the yellow solid in varied lighting. This was a plus as the green is such a strong colour - don't want the yellow flowers to disappear. I also realise that I prefer the lemony yellow of the print to the darker gold of the solid.

The photo of the blocks together (below) is not a good photo - sorry. I can't seem to get a true colour and the print looks positively dirty. The photo above is much truer.

The two trial blocks

Block construction also needed deliberation ;)

The pattern for each lily block (11 3/4 ") requires 28 individual fabric shapes to be pieced together (including background pieces), and then the stems/leaves to be appliqued on top. I don't enjoy this sort of piecing (am not at all good at it!) so had already decided I would just have a background square and applique the lot onto it.

To help with applique placement I made a block frame - with opening the size of finished block. Then I made a sketch of the block on graph paper - the placement sketch for the applique pieces. By laying the background fabric square over this, on top of a lightbox, I could make sure the pieces would be in the same place on each block (hopefully?!).

Next:  to make the flowers with English Paper piecing method:

For the stems I made bias tape:

Great tool for bias making

It is usually easy enough to applique this tape along curves but in this case the tape is half an inch thick - too thick to be very flexible -  and did not cooperate with the sharper corners (see below). I ended up with some ugly bunching on the inner curves ... not happy! 

Curved bias stems did not sew down well - not using this method

So - I reverted to my favourite method of back-basted applique for the curved stems, and saved the bias tape only for the centre straight stem. That worked well - happy now!

I'll post some photos of this method in progress next time. Am not having luck loading more photos today...sigh.

If you would like to see some precise piecing of a lovely Carolina Lily quilt have a look at

 Thelma's red Carolina lilies - all machine pieced and even machine appliqued - magic! She has included great photo instructions. 

Photo from Thelma's blog with permission - beautiful!

Carolina Lily

Making a start on this (yippee) ... "Carolina Lily" pattern in Quiltmania number 59

My photo of page in Quiltmania 59

First - the fabric selection and collection - just in case you are interested: 

• 10 yards of Kona Cotton Snow ( k001-1339) for the background - not too white, not too pink, and not too dark - happy with that, no problem.
• 3 and 1/2 yards of green - a bit of faffing around involved here, but decided on the Poison Green from Vintage and Vogue (don't actually know the make of it - anyone know?)
• 1 and 1/2 yards of yellow...LOTs of faffing around and still can't decide

The yellow semi-finalists - two solids and a tiny print

In the picture above : The very bottom yellow I do love, but have come to the conclusion the colour is not strong enough (bit too grey?) against the brighter green - so it is out. 

The finalists - almost

That leaves, in the picture above,  the final two yellow possibilities -  

• Pomegranate from Blue Hills with the tiny print, 
• and a great solid yellow (from a local quilt shop but there is no label unfortunately). 

I have loads of photos of antique Carolina Lily quilts on my Pinterest board (been researching away!) and quite a few have a tiny print for the flowers - looks charming. 

Either of these last two yellows would be great I think ...any preferences ?

Amazing how much time is spent on the fabric decisions isn't it...but when there are only two fabrics playing around on at least 85 inches of background it would be quite sad to get sick of one part way through!!

"In the Time of Toile" quilt finished

Found a spot for it on the wall...

I have been quite heavy with the machine quilting as this quilt is for hanging. My thinking is that it does not need to be soft and puffy (like my Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses ) . I also wanted to add interest and another dimension with some geometric quilting.

Here are some photos taken in a different light to show up the quilting:

None of the quilting lines were marked on the quilt - just followed seam lines or free-motion stippled. But I wanted to make especially sure the lines on the Toile triangles (above ) were evenly spaced. I am not a fan of markers because I have made a mess of them before. So I thought I'd try a method I'd read about - using lines drawn on thin foundation piecing (or greaseproof) paper and sewing over it - seemed ingenious!?

                        Here goes...

Freezer paper cut to shape, lines drawn on, and pinned to quilt 

Machine stitched through quilt along lines using walking foot

Tearing off the paper to reveal lovely lines

All in all it went really well and I'd do it again. The tearing off is not too fiddly with straight lines. I'd be a little wary using it on a large area as the walking foot does not grab the top layer of fabric so there could be some movement (ie, puckering alert).

Thanks so much to Sue 's generosity with this kit. It was a great little challenge and lots of fun!

Here's a touch of autumn in the garden - the weather here has been just perfect recently.

Leaves on my Dogwood tree

And now ... I hear a new project calling... Carolina Lily (see end of the post in this link) starting soon ...so exciting!