Thursday 9 July 2020

All things bright and beautiful


Here are two finished tops which I thought might deserve the title of this post, and which might also cheer up the grey drizzle we are 'enjoying' here this week.  Good for the garden but a far cry from the melting temperatures of a couple of weeks ago.


So, the keen-eyed among you many already have spotted the link between the two tops: they are both made from patterns by Emma Newman of Emma Mary Designs. The first photo is of Arlington Square which I started last August at a class with Emma, who was then visiting Pincushion in Tunbridge Wells from her home in Australia (see this blogpost and this one too).  Doesn't the thought of travelling from somewhere so far away seem odd now, after more than three months of lockdown and current travel restrictions?

While I was there I bought another of Emma's patterns, Kaleidoscope, and this is the top featured second above and again below, showing all the seams and looking a bit like stained glass with the light shining through:


One quilt top is machine pieced, the other entirely hand pieced. But the other link between them is that the two quilts use the same fabrics.  That is because I cut the all the pieces at the same time from a selection of bright fat quarters from my stash.  


Some of the fabrics had been 'resting' in the stash for quite a long time, others were more recent acquisitions.  The only fabrics specifically bought for these projects were the grey and white stripe for handpieced Arlington Square, and the off-white plain and the soft grey Tilda spot for  Kaleidoscope.  In both cases that was because I needed quite a bit of yardage to keep those elements of the two designs constant.


The machine pieced quilt was easy to rotary cut in the usual way, so I layered up the fabrics, and cut strips into squares and triangles in the way we are all familiar with.  I put these large pieces for the Kaleidoscope top in a box and put them on one side.  


Once I was well into Arlington Square and enjoying the brighter palette, I decide to do some machine piecing by way of a change - nothing like starting a new project while still in the middle of an old one (I don't expect any of you have done that...).  I was able to chain piece the blocks in no time once I had sorted out a pressing plan so the seams would nest together.  


The cutting was quite time consuming but the variety of colourful fabrics helped to keep me interested.  For the handpieced quilt I bought the laser cut plastic templates specially designed for the quilt.  This does add to the expense of making a hand pieced quilt such as Arlington Square, but it really helps with accuracy, not only for cutting the irregular pieces but also for marking the start and stop points on each piece and the seam allowances. 


I had been sewing away at both over a period of months in the earlier part of this year.  It was nice to alternate machine sewing with hand piecing - a change is as good as a rest, they say!  The tops were put together in the early part of June.  


Both were a bit of a challenge in the final stages: Kaleidoscope had to be laid out in quarters and care taken to rotate and orient the units correctly to keep the design right  There are two different units, 200 of each, and I wanted to try and spread the colours and fabrics fairly evenly through the top so I needed quite a lot of space.


Arlington Square has the blocks set on point so some of the rows were very short and some very long.  I had to lay all the blocks out on my bed to try and get a good distribution of colour and pattern, plus the added complication of the half- and quarter- blocks to complete the design.  I haven't yet trimmed the surplus fabric along the edges as I probably won't be quilting this top for a little while.


So the jury is still out over which of these two tops I love the best.  Kaleidoscope has a freshness but Arlington Square has a saturation of colour which is also very pleasing.  Plus I am so proud to have handpieced (and finished) an entire quilt top!


Maybe I will know who my favourite is once the tops are quilted. The quilting often brings a different dynamic.  We shall see... Meanwhile here are some photos of Kaleidoscope blowing in the wind to finish off this post.  Have a lovely weekend, wherever you are.





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