Is your stash taking over?
(Sorry – the image is not here – technical issue – trying out a new tool). Seems that WordPress.com does not allow use of Java script – so may need to progress towards a self-hosting option. More learning!
Is your stash taking over?
(Sorry – the image is not here – technical issue – trying out a new tool). Seems that WordPress.com does not allow use of Java script – so may need to progress towards a self-hosting option. More learning!
Comments Off on 5 Way to Reduce Your Stash
Posted in Fabric
As a member of ‘The Patchworkers and Quilters Guild of Victoria’, Leslie Edwards – a contemporary quilter – has organised a ‘block swap’ with a patchwork group in Africa. The brief included a block between 6″ and 12″, and ‘see what you can come up with’.
What to do? I thought I’d document the thoughts behind this block as part of the ‘Process Pledge’, so …
So for the first block – let’s keep it simple. A 12″ block, pieced by machine, some Australian fabrics including a medium value burnt orange, a light aboriginal patterned fabric for the background, and a darker Leesa Chandler floral fabric as the feature.
Which pattern? It needed to be reasonably large pieces in the block to show the fabric designs, and I came across ‘Kentucky Chain’ by Maggie Malone in her book. Although I can do Y seams by hand, I thought I’d have a go at doing this one by machine instead.
So, the measurements came out to be an awkward size, and rather than cut out to within an 1/8th of an inch, … there must be an easier way to make sure it remained accurate.
Iron the freezer paper to the wrong side of the plain and background fabrics, cut them out and draw in the 1/4″ seam line ready for sewing.
I wanted to fussy cut the feature fabric, so …
Time to sew. I used one of my favourite threads – Aurafil – for the piecing. As there was a significant amount of orange in two of the fabrics, my usual medium grey piecing threads showed up a tad more than was usual , so I did something I normally don’t do, I used a coloured thread instead. The challenge was to work out what pieces to sew into patches, and the order of sewing the patches, to keep the number of Y seams to a minimum.
Circling the centre seam keeps the bulk of the fabric evenly distributed and flatter than ironing to one side.
Now for the next one …
Comments Off on African Block Swap #1
Posted in Block Patterns
Tagged African Block Swap, Aurafil, fussy cutting, Leesa Chandler, Leslie Edwards
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