Week 13 EPP - Monday Progress Report

Last week I made the hexagon and triangle piece a little bigger - it is nearly large enough to be trimmed back to 12.5 inches.  

I also appliquéd the Mitsubishi Star on to a piece of plain blue Moda  The points gave me a lot of trouble.  I have not done any kind of appliqué before - clearly I need to practice.  

The plan is to mix plain solids and appliqué blocks in with the EPP  blocks.  I'm not sure how I will arrange the blocks but it may look a bit like this:

At the moment I'm thinking the finished quilt will have 25 blocks.  So next week I'm planning to carry on enlarging the EPP blocks and I expect I will do another piece to appliqué on to a plain block.  Pentagons may be involved!

As always I will join up with Jessica and Life Under Quilts to see what you've all been up to.

Week 12 EPP- Mitsubishi Star

OK.

I've decided to turn my EPP pieces into a quilt made of 12 inch blocks.  The really busy small scale patchwork blocks will be separated by plain blue blocks or star blocks.  I've started collecting star block designs on a pinterest board as I will need five of them.  

This week I started on the first star block.  The plan is to appliqué the star on to a plain blue square.  

I'm calling this one Mitsubishi Star (if it needs a name) because it started with this triangle and diamond shape.

Japanese symbols are a good source of inspiration.

I think I should use cotton batting because I may decide to QAYG it. So I will need to iron the beast to within an inch of its life as I join the blocks together.  Man-made wadding would just melt (ask me how I know).

I will be linking up with Jessica's Monday Star Count over at Life Under Quilts.  Would be interested to hear thoughts on the best way to quilt small scale EPP work without too much cursing, broken machine needles or scarred finger ends.

Week 11 EPP - at last, a hexagon.

I could not do an English Paper Piecing project without hexagons, could I?  But I had to mess about with them.

It might make a good medallion for the middle of a quilt if the edge wasn't so aggressive and sharp looking.   

The hexagon is probably the most popular shape used in this kind of piecing, but it took me a while to decide on this design.  It was days before I worked out that you can combine any size hexagon and any size triangle and they will fit together.  

The current plan is to get this piece to a bit bigger than 12 inches across and then square it off. I'll use my least favourite fabrics for the edge - don't like chopping off my favourites.

I now have nine pieces of various designs and sizes.  When I run out of ideas for different designs....what happens next?  I have bought too many supplies to stop now enough supplies to do a bit more...

Linking up with Jessica at Life Under Quilts, of course.

Week 10 EPP - back to tradition

For this week's EPP I've gone for a traditional  tumbling blocks pattern, but this one has the blocks spaced out with the white triangles.

I like the star pattern that the white triangles make.

I realised that in both these photos the pattern is the "wrong" way up.  I quite like it because the blocks really do look as if they are falling.. Here it is the right way up on the piano.

I planned it with the red pieces at the top but I am not sure which way round I prefer now.

There are 88 pieces in this pattern at the moment, making 530 in all.  This is my eighth piece and I still have not used a hexagon. But I have plans for next week.

Linking up with Jessica at Life Under Quilts.

Week 9 EPP - Crooked windows?

This week's piece (unfinished, of course) came from a doodle in my graph paper book.

It continues the theme of little red squares which features in most of the other pieces.  What shall we call it - crooked windows?

But the pattern drifts upwards so I am not sure how it will fit in with the others or with a straight edge.

I guess I just make it bigger and chop it to the size I need after I have removed the papers.  There are seventy pieces in this so far, making 442 in all.  I wonder if I will make it to a thousand.

Although it was sunny yesterday, Miss Ted has resumed her winter garments today.  No sewing in the garden unless it gets brighter. June already!

Later today I will link up with Jessica at Life Under Quilts and WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced to see what everyone else has been up to.