teaching sewing confidence, tip by tip
Showing posts with label Skill Builder BOM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Skill Builder BOM. Show all posts

Sunday, 7 July 2013

Shattered Chevrons & Broken Arrow Blocks - Skill Builder BOM: June/FMQ

FMQ is now complete on my two June Skill Builder BOM blocks.

And here are the 2 latest blocks, which means I'm totally up-to-date and waiting, yes, actually waiting, for Alyssa @Pile O'Fabric to post the instructions for the July blocks!!!:

SHATTERED CHEVRONS BLOCK
Chain piecing HSTs

I'm about to trim my 2" HSTs only to discover my smallest Bloc-Loc is 2.5" :( - if you don't know what a Bloc-Loc is, check out my Bloc-Loc tute here.

64 trimmed HSTs

and here's the made-up block

I wanted to fmq the block really simply and appreciated that when Alyssa sent out the fmq suggested instructions, she felt exactly the same way.  I just did my usual vermicelli/stipple fmq stitch over the grey background fabric and left the coloured areas alone.

It was quite difficult to fmq this block - there are so many layers of fabric at each point that it was tricky to smoothly sew right through them all.

And take a look at the back.
Kaffe Fassett - Lake Blossoms


BROKEN ARROW BLOCK 
10 x 1.5" wide strips of foundation paper piecing

The finished block ready to fmq

And here it is fmq'd - again, kept it simple, just vermicelli/stippling on the background grey.

and a closer look at the back
Kaffe Fassett - Paisley Jungle

Do you know I think these two blocks are my absolute favourites? They were quite time-consuming, but there was nothing difficult or brain-aching about them, and the finished result is so pleasing - it would make great cushions covers.  

And here's my progress so far - firstly laid out as the blocks will be in the final quilt:

secondly, with each row laid out next to each other to make a better photo:

and thirdly - how the back's looking, and it has to be said it's pretty scrummy to my way of thinking!

Oh, and before I forget, I don't know if any of you would even have noticed a change, but way back in April, I created a February block (yes, up until now, I've been way behind every month on this BOM!) called The Mood, here it is:
 

After I created this block, I decided that the whole quilt needed some sort of commonality to pull the whole thing together, so I've always quilted the grey background fabric with a vermicelli/stippling stitch.  You might notice two sections of this block made from the background grey, yet I'd already done straight line quilting in a triangular spiral on each.  In reply to Sonia @Fabric & Flowers' comment, I did say that I really wanted to redo these two quilting sections but that I'd hold fire until I was further on with the quilt to make my mind up for sure.

Well, this month, the time had come - when I laid all the blocks out together, these two sections were screaming at me so loudly that I couldn't bear it a moment longer and ripped them out and fmq'd right over them.

Here's how they look now - you can still see the original stitch lines slightly, but it's nothing that won't disappear when the quilt's finally washed.  I feel sooooo much better now - the vermicelli/stippling has knocked those two grey sections right back, and the whole quilt looks a million times better, amazing how your eye can pick up on something and know it's not right even if you don't always know quite what it is.
 
 

Next Time: For July, I have absolutely no idea what we'll be making and for now, I'm just thrilled to be completely up-to-date, which has to be a first since this Skill Builder BOM began back in January!!!


Featured On:
Quilt Story


Follow on Bloglovin





Written by at 47 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, 30 June 2013

Switz & Geo Swirl Blocks - Skill Builder BOM: May/FMQ

FMQ is now complete on my two May Skill Builder BOM blocks.

Here are my 2 blocks:

SWITZ BLOCK

When I created the centre circles, I didn't want to do raw edge applique, so I turned the edges under and sewed them into place.  Once I was ready to fmq the centre, I removed the original straight stitching and fmq'd over both circles.

I got a bit carried away fmqing this block, and maybe it's worked too heavily compared to the simple fmqing on all the other blocks, but I think I like it.

Kaffe Fassett - Oriental Trees


GEO SWIRL BLOCK
Kaffe Fassett - Oriental Trees

and here's my progress so far:

Next Time: For June, we'll be perfecting Foundation Paper Piecing and HSTs - maybe I should get around to these June blocks sooner rather than later as we're pretty much at July already!!!



Follow on Bloglovin

Pile O' Fabric






Written by at 36 comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Chev N' Hex & Diamond Carat Blocks - Skill Builder BOM: April/FMQ

FMQ is now complete on my two April Skill Builder BOM blocks.  I wasn't looking forward to making these blocks at all, and so I put it off, then I didn't make the May blocks either because I hadn't done the April blocks.  A week before the June blocks were available, I thought it was time to sort myself out, so I got stuck in to get up-to-date again with the BOM!

So here are my 2 April blocks:

CHEV N' HEX BLOCK

Alyssa introduced us to English Paper Piecing using a pre-cut applique foundation similar to interfacing (see image above) rather than card templates - this can be left in the finished block and breaks down when the quilt is finally washed.


Instead of thread basting the pieces, we glued the fabric to the templates and then glued the seams back into place.  I used Aleene's Tacky Glue (fast-drying glue pen), and also Aleene's OK To Wash-It (permanent fabric adhesive).  The Tacky Glue held the fabric in place quicker than the OK To Wash-It, and the OK To Wash-It was visible through the fabric for a day or so after I'd glued the pieces and then it disappeared - must have needed longer to dry out properly.  I found the glueing process messy and, even though I'm a very clean and careful worker, I frequently got glue on the fabric's surface.

I also found that the applique templates, which were incredibly like interfacing, didn't have a firm and solid enough edge to allow me to cleanly fold the fabric back over them and get the crisp seam line to sew along.  This was frustrating when joining the pieces together as the edges didn't butt up to each other as perfectly as I expect when I'm doing English Paper Piecing - you'll see what I mean more when you see the photos of the next Diamond Carat block.

 Look how you can see the glue showing through the fabric, particularly on the green sections above.

I decided to try out Alyssa's suggested machine sewn method of joining the pieces.  Basically, I surface sewed the pieces together using an invisible top and bottom thread and set my stitch to zig-zag with a 0.9 width and 1.0 length.  This method was soooooo quick and easy, and although the stitches are visible (I'll show you these more in the Diamond Carat block), it's really not that bad.

And here's the finished quilted block:
Kaffe Fassett -Bekah


DIAMOND CARAT BLOCK

On this Diamond Carat block, you can see how the surface zig-zag stitching works - and just how visible it is.  Creating the centre star's tiny points wasn't easy - there was so much fabric to fold back, and the interfacing wasn't solid enough to give good crisp lines.  The pieces didn't come out to perfect sizes as you would normally expect with English Paper Piecing, and then the pieces didn't line up well against each other.   The fabric surface is also dirtied with glue.

 You can see in the photo above that the pieces didn't lie well next to each other - there's overlapping, gaps and unevenness along the seams.

Below is the finished quilted block - I quilted as close as I could to the seam lines to try to hold the pieces in place more firmly, and then shadow/echo quilted each line as I didn't trust that the zig-zag joining method would hold the block together well over time.

Kaffe Fassett - Lake Blossoms

Next Time: We'll be doing Foundation Paper Piecing - something I'm well practised at already being a pattern tester for Juliet @Tartankiwi, so it shouldn't be too difficult ;)


Follow on Bloglovin

Pile O' Fabric







Written by at 13 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,