Overlapping Octagons and Y-seams

For the UandUQAL organised by Sujata Shah I am reproducing the Overlapping Octagons quilt from Roderick Kirakofe's book, "Unconventional and Unexpected". I haven't done much to it over the last few months; this is the present state of this lap quilt.

I have made octagons with red centres surrounded by predominantly dark blue strings.  With this choice I aimed to use up most of my blue and red Civil War reproduction fabrics, and with the red I succeeded and have added more modern reds, but the blue were all so dark I soon started introducing flashes of other colours.

At present they're not overlapping, but I have more red squares cut, and here I've positioned them where red squares will go in the final design.

I am pleased that the overlapping octagons have now emerged.

The octagon blocks have Y-seams at each corner, and inserting the second set of red centre blocks will involve more Y-seams. I wasn't happy about this at the beginning, and so tried making hourglass blocks in the corners, as shown here:

This is one of two hourglass blocks I retained, before I gave up on them. At each of  the corners of this hourglass block five fabrics come together making very bulky seams which I couldn't get to lie flat.

Doing Y-seams, however, means joining only three, which will lie much more easily, especially if the last string in the side panel continues into the corner triangle, as here below.

Sorry about the fuzziness!

In this corner above, one of the four string sets ends in a separate triangle; this is one of the string sets I originally joined to an hourglass block. I rejected that method because of the lack of continuity between the string set and its triangular ending as well as the bulkiness of the join.

There was only one thing for it: Y-seams. I dreaded the thought! Now I'm becoming an expert! Practice makes perfect, they say, and I've had a lot of practice! The secret lies in:

1. starting sewing the seam at the opposite end to the Y-join,
2. stopping two stitches before the point of the join and backtracking a couple of stitches. That unsewn space gives you some room to manoeuvre.
3. starting each seam four stitch lengths further than the join, stitching back two stitches to fix the seam and then stitching the seam further until two stitch lengths before the point and backtracking two to fix the seam.

The mistake I made when I first tried Y-seams was to start at the point where everything came together. It's very crowded there! Much easier to keep your distance from everyone else at the party. Approach slowly and stand still when you're close enough. After following a tutorial from Mary Huey on sewing tumbling blocks, it was plain sailing for me! Mary illustrates the process with lots of excellent, clear photos.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Mini Wonders table runner.

              

My Mini Wonders Table Runner is finished and in use on the dining table. This is my first finish for the 2019 Q2 Finish Along list, and was also my one monthly goal for May.

The pattern is by Sheila Christensen and was published in instalments in six issues of "Make Modern". This design looks as if it might be EPP, but in fact it's ordinary piecing; all the pieces are cut from strips using a 60 degree ruler. The strips are either 1.5" or 2.5".

I quilted the border sections and the white pieces in the large hexagons with the walking foot and the setting triangles free motion.

 Fabric

The coloured hexagons are made using two fabrics in each of six colours. I used Alison Glass fabrics from various series.
The borders are white and three shades of grey.
For the binding I cut 2" strips of several of the fabrics used in the table runner,
The backing is "Basicgrey compositions" from Moda (the second word may be something else - it is so faint)
I both pieced and quilted with Aurifil 50wt. colour 2600, dove grey.

I'm linking this week to:

    
Click on the buttons above to view more new quilts.

I'm linking to "One Monthly Goal" at Elm Street Quilts,

and to 2019 Finish Along at Studio sew of course at the end of June.
Then you'll be able to view other people's progress by clicking on these links.

Happy sewing

Marly.

RSC 2019 half way mark!

As the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, organised by Angela, runs from January to October the end of May marks the half-way point. Despite starting more than 2 months into the year I've pretty well caught up, though I will probably make more red and yellow units.

rainbow bow ties

The units finish at 6" square, so the photo represents a 36" x 42" quilt. This is not the final layout; there are still five months and five colours to go. I haven't repeated any of the coloured fabrics, but I have repeated neutrals; despite buying more neutral FQs and having more choice, repetition seems to be inevitable.

I'm linking up to:

     

Click on the buttons to visit the parties; 

especially the RSC sampler blocks are very pretty. 

Happy sewing

Marly.

One Monthly Goal in May

Last month's goal was to move my Mini Wonders table runner on, and I did. In fact it moved further than I had expected; I finished the top.

Mini Wonders: pattern by Sheila Christensen, published in Make Modern

This month my goal for the challenge with Patty at Elm Street Quilts is to finish it completely:

This is what it looked like four hours ago

and this is now:


I've quilted in all the ditches around the large triangles that make up the hexagons, and between the borders - doing the last one now.


















I plan to free motion quilt with light grey 50 wt thread on the white and light grey background, with dark grey 50 wt on the darker greys and hand quilt with big stitches on the colours. Unfortunately I don't have the right colours in my stock of 12 wt cotton. I do however have hundreds of colours of DMC stranded cotton. Has anyone experience of quilting with stranded cotton? I'm rather afraid that the strands will separate, or not be strong enough. I'd really be grateful for your advice on this.

Meanwhile it's back to the ditches!

I'm linking to :

 

Click on the button to see more goals.

Happy sewing

Marly.