Proud Caribou

 My first quilt top finish for 2021 is here, the proud Caribou!

 I have always loved the winter sky in the Northern Hemisphere with its beautiful colors of purples and pinks. When the chance of testing the Legit Caribou pattern popped up, I jumped at it. A foundation paper pieced pattern of 60"x 80" didn't scare me at all!

 

The patterns from LegitKits are very neat and well explained. 64 individual blocks of A4 size are put together to create the final result. Here's a shot from early in the process.

 

I love puzzles, so this was a perfect project for me! The blocks came together slowly but surely, a couple or three each day, depending on the complexity of the block. The eye block was the most complex one.

There's a lot of fabrics and colors in this quilt. Originally the pattern is designed with 72 different colors of Kona solids, but I made my version with fabrics completely from my stash and scraps. Most of it is batiks from my two years as an Island Batik ambassador. A giveaway prize from Sandra Johnson Designs with batiks in greys and purples also came in handy.

In addition, I didn't realize I had that many shades of brown cotton fabrics in my stash for the antlers!

Laying out the completed blocks on the floor wasn't easy with a quilt this size, but I managed to get a pretty decent photo before starting the assembly process of the 64 blocks.

The blocks were assembled in sections, and the points came together very well. I had a few sessions with the seam ripper to get the connections right, but all in all it was a smooth process. I can totally recommend making a FPP quilt from LegitKits, I had lots of fun in the approximately two months it took me from start to finish of this quilt top. 

 

 

This selvedge on one of my antler fabrics reminded me of taking it slow in the FPP process, you can't rush if you want a good result. I loved every minute of it!

 

The photo shoot in the snow was a success, this is where the proud caribou belongs!

I am very happy I was able to make this large quilt entirely from my stash and scraps. No new fabrics were bought, and the thread was also from my stash, A win-win situation in my mind!

 

 

 

 

MEGA Paper Piecing Panel

For a long time now, I have been a regular pattern tester for Berene of HappySewLucky. The adventure started two years ago. I have had the pleasure of working with her evolving Tattoo Quilt Pattern, and have enjoyed every minute of it. Now it was the last center panel to be worked on.

This is a HUGE block, the pattern is a thick bundle of pages! I pieced as much as I could before taking the project with me on vacation. It travels better in smaller pieces. The above picture shows how far I got before packing started.

Assembling the heart was easy and quick with all the preparations done in advance. The above picture shows the heart without the text banners, rotary cutter for scale. Here the panel is 28" wide and 20" high.

The text banners are wide, and I almost didn't have enough Wonder Clips with me, I barely managed. My holiday sewing machine did a great job with the foundation paper piecing.

Here is the upper text banner assembled.

I took a picture of the lower banner before assembling. Keep in mind this is 28" wide!

The complete Open Heart Open Mind center panel is finished. The completed block is 28" x 32". Sashing will be added , and then it is time to assemble all my tattoo blocks into the complete quilt designed by Berene.

Now what remains is to pick out all the tiny and not so tiny paper pieces from the back. Actually, I kind of enjoy that mindless job after the stamina that was needed to finish this MEGA block.

Needle, Paper, Scissors Challenge

October's challenge was to complete a paper pieced project, foundation or English, that was up to us. The project could be of any size.

I am very fond of foundation paper piecing in spite of all the "waste" of fabric and removing paper from the back when the project is finished. I have done quite a lot of FPP, but never as small and detailed as this. The above picture shows all the pattern parts for the project I chose; the Bitty Eagle block, a pattern by Janeen van Niekerk of Quilt Art Designs.

Everything fits in one A4 sheet of paper. The finished block is 5" square.

For the eagle I used solids in black, white and grey, and a couple of Batik Foundations. The strip set of Vintage Morris provided colors for the eyes and beak of the eagle.

Here is the resulting "portrait" of the Bald Eagle before the paper is removed. It is a bold and proud eagle; I managed to capture the perfect look in its face and eyes.

There were a lot of small pieces in this block, and it took quite a long time to make it look exactly how I wanted.

Since this is a fairly small block, I wanted to "frame" the eagle like it is hanging in a picture frame on the wall. First it got a frame of batik foundations - Bubbles Sahara all around.

I wanted to put the frame on a green wall of batik foundations Bubbles Sprout, and chose to add a shadow around the frame to enhance the eagle a little more.

I used Hobbs Thermore batting, and Aurifil thread for both piecing and quilting. The green background (or wall) is quilted with Aurifil 50 wt in 5016, and the frame with 5013 (see below). Aurifil 2370 was used in the bobbin.

I also wanted to add some thread painting to my piece, to spruce it up. Aurifil 40 wt in 2024, 2175 and 2600 was used for this. and This is the first time I have ever done thread painting. I think the eagle feather looks quite nice at the bottom of my piece.

The binding is Cherwell Copper Vintage, and it matches the fall leaves perfectly.

Here's a detailed picture of the feather, not bad for a first try of thread painting.

The finished size of my wallhanging is approx 12" x 15", and now I just have to find a place for it on my wall.


Thanks to Island Batik, Aurifil and Hobbs for providing fabric, thread and batting for this project.

More Pattern Testing

Back in February this year I started pattern testing for Berene of Happy Sew Lucky. This lady is productive, and already in April I have completed testing of my third pattern for her.

This is her third pattern of the Tattoo Series, the first one is LOVE (which I haven't tested,  yet). COURAGE is tested by me here .

I am definitely not an expert in foundation paper piecing, actually the first time I paper pieced a block was during the Splendid Sampler quilt along last year. Since then paper piecing has become one of my favorites.

Berene's patterns are easy to follow, the instructions are very clear, even Y-seams are no problem anymore.

I love this shot of my blue swallows on my deck with my purple  Little Birdy pincushion keeping it in place in the wind.

The latest pattern is FURY, and above are my fabric choices. I had the perfect orange and yellow fabric, Marblehead by Ro Gregg for Paintbrush studios, the two leftmost fabrics. There's a lot of life in this fabric, especially the orange one.

The first item I did was the text banner. Here is an in-progress shot of the heart with the banner. The heart fabric is also perfect, the golden lines and the darker red patches give a lot of life to the heart.

Here all the flame pieces are done and ready to be assembled. The ruler I received as a gift from Berene has come in very handy working with paper piecing.

The flames are slowly coming together. You can almost feel the heat!

...and the flames are done! There's so much life in this picture!

And here the quilt top is all assembled. The burning heart on the cold, almost snowy background.

This is how the backside looks before the paper is removed, lots of tiny pieces!

The FURY is burning in the sunlight!

Thanks to Berene of Happy Sew Lucky for letting me test her patterns, this is a real skill builder for me!

Keep on sewing and paper piecing!

Testing, Testing...

Earlier this month I was lucky to be accepted as a pattern tester for Happy Sew Lucky for a paper-pieced pattern. She was looking for intermediate level paper-piecers, and I had the courage to jump in with both feet...