Work on Wednesday 17th July

Hi Everyone,

Have had 3 days off so have been making progress with getting my Forget Me Not quilts ready for our groups exhibition next month. Was meeting day yesterday so took my Retro version along and got all the binding finally sewn down. So much easier when you are chatting Lol.

Photo's are before I got the stitching finished. Didn't have a clue what fabric to bind with but was thinking something dark or orange. Took the quilt to my local fabric shop and nothing was working, one of the girls said where is that neutral basket weave - out the back, hiding-  and WOW it was the perfect fabric.

Now have hanging sleeves to add before 12th Aug, set up day. Am having a week off work so I can help out and DH is coming to help get all the quiltsup on their stands.
We are a very small group, only 29 members and our exhibition is biannual. Think we have 57 quilts this year
plus another 60 something smaller exhibits. Our group makes a couple of raffle quilts throughout the year plus other raffle prizes,  last time we were able to donate nearly $2000-00 to charity organisations serving the Northland Area.

Took the opportunity while I was in Dargaville to go back to Country Dawn and found the perfect fabrics for my  Love Entwined Diamond Borders

Feel so lucky to have them almost on my doorstep, only 60 km's away.
They are an on line fabric site based in Dargaville and have such a wide selection of fabrics life is easy, but I still couldn't find the pinks I wanted.

Decided I wanted to use my inspiration fabric instead of the triangles around my compass so with fussy cutting came up with this.

There was a  gold line just outside the pattern edges and  thinking it was giving me a wonderful trimming line I cut to that. Was I wrong!!!!
I did sample stitching to find my satin stitch size but still had to unpick my first one, luckily no holes in my background fabric.Every trace of black showed through my gold metallic thread so every trace of black had to come off !!!

Finally I am happy but I had one more problem. I had marked my 32 points with pencil, and then decided  I liked 16 major points better. My compromise, 16 major points with sequin plus bead as my Paua buttons were a fraction too big - and 16 beads only to cover my pencil marks.I'm Happy!!!

And to today
I have been trying to get my head around those diamonds.
Used Esther's pattern page  for fusible, traced it out  as I don't have printable fusible, thought this looks quick and easy.While I am cutting them up I realise some go one way some are the other - have I stuffed up!!!!

I think I am okay, I will have two dark corners and two light corners. I like this so carrying on.
Hope you are all having as much fun as I am.
Cheer's  Jenny

Work on Wednesday 3rd july

Hi Everyone,
Have had a week at work, so when Esther's Love Entwined was released last Friday, I had 3 days to think and plan.
Oh dear, not enough of my background fabric that I love, and bought without knowing the requirements, a silly thing to do but I love it and always had a plan B which is,
Make a smaller quilt OR buy the same fabric in deeper shade for the outer borders.

I love this, it has a pink tinge plus an almost green tinge depending on the light. From Ginny Beyer's Essential Neutrals range, but it really shows as a cream/beige fabric.

Monday I started my compass and finished the inner yesterday  morning, Thanks to Glenda I dropped one colour from the outer piecing., and am very happy with it.

Wish there were not so many R's in what I am typing as the R button fell off yesterday and it is a precision touch to get it to work, Lol

My center is fussy cut from my inspiration fabric. I will show this at the end of this post, it is going to drive my fabric choices and there will be a lot of fussy cutting from this fabric.

So far it is all from my stash except the background.

Pink and Blue points are Fairy Frosts and I will be using a lot of these. The other compass points are synthetics.

Took these photo's as I made the last quarter's, thinking they may help some that are new to paper piecing

or foundation piecing as I know it.

It may be easier not to cut your fabric to the exact measurements, but to cut rectangles instead. For me it is 

easier but it does waste a little fabric.

These were my measurements. for all the outer triangles I cut fabric at 2 1/2" x 1 1/2"

For the 8 outer pink  points 3" x 1 1/2", for the 4 secondary Aqua points 4" x 2"

The center star I cut to the template.

You can cut them larger if you wish but this gives good coverage of the pattern area.

My Pink fabric is completely covering the point and the second fabric is lined up by holding to the light and allowing a 1/4" seam.

After stitching and pressing I fold the paper foundation back and trim the pink fabric back to 1/4"

From the pattern line. I know the longer lines on this ruler are quarter inch and I find it easy to work with for trimming.

Trim the second fabric the same way and line up and stitch the next,

All fabrics added, just need to trim to the foundation edge, bottom of my pink is already trimmed

.

Had to help with stock take at work yesterday afternoon but had time for a couple of false starts with the outer ring as wanted a gold fabric but nothing worked, just before leaving I found the answer and also the solution for my little circles which also hadn't been coming together for me.

An Icy Blue Fairy Frost,. it is raw edge machine appliqued with tiny blanket stitch, the outer edge still has to be trimmed to size. I used fusible web to hold it in place.

My pink shot Gold fabric shows better in this photo, the truest colors I think.

Knowing the compass edge was going to be under my outer circle  made me to rethink my options for the little circles using machine applique.

My bead box gave me these, Paua, or Abalone shell circles from a necklace I bought for the other beads.

Only one hole but if you look at the top right quarter, I am using  tiny pale blue beads to secure them in place. Shell side up for the 4 points and polished side up for all the others.

Can't attach them till my compass is in place as will not be able to machine stitch the outer edge if I do.

I have now attached a layer of iron on Viselene or Pellon padding to the back of my compass,  restitched around my center circle with metallic gold triple stitch for more definition, and 1 row of metallic gold around the inner edge of the outer circle to make sure the pellon will not move. As you can see the pellon is cut 1/4 inch inside my outer trimming line. The above photo's have the pellon already in place.

And my inspiration fabric.

Fell in love with it a few weeks ago, and just had to buy a couple of meters, not intending it for LE. 

You can see on the lower right the medallion I fussy cut for my compass center. 

Not sure where this is now taking me but I am going to enjoy the journey.

That's it for this week, Cheer's Jenny