Alhambra Star

This might be my longest ever work in progress. I first blogged about it in early 2015.  Just before Christmas I saw this Owen Jones canvas for sale in John Lewis:

I can do that, I thought.  So I started making another piece.

This one is based on a 3/4 inch equilateral triangle, chopped up in various ways.  The scale is rather small, but I have to keep it similar to the other pieces.



I think I may stop after this one and start joining up, but I'm not promising anything.

Passacaglia Update

This is the current state of my Passacaglia.  I've never been one for following patterns, and those familiar with the Passacaglia will see that I've gone off piste and beyond the edges of the large Rosette.  I want to see if I can expand the pattern indefinitely.  Round and round.  A break between each round will be good for my sanity.

It's all Liberty and shot cottons.  I'm pausing for a while now while I decide on the next fabric.

Linking up with Jessica over at Life Under Quilts

Nine Stars - some EPP with curves.

I've been working on a small piece made from shot cotton.  The above pic is from the back against the light, so you can see all the gaps I've left!  Each block is 6 inches square.

 Oakshott did an offer for their sample packs and I got my hands on the Lakes pack - lovely blues with a bit of green and purple.  It was fun squeezing the pieces out of a five inch square.  I used every scrap.  The white and brown pieces were from stash.

I used my usual method of drawing on a piece of Incompetech graph paper - this one is on Polar graph paper.  I found the best way to get round the complex curves was to cut the seam allowance really fine and let it stretch. Easy with a closely woven fabric.

I wish you could see the colours.  About to finish it off with some hand quilting.

In haste so I can link up with Life Under Quilts -and WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Moorish Patterns in EPP - Update

I'm working on a new EPP pattern to go with the other Arabic style patterns that have been pinned to the wall here. This one is based on a pattern from Kharraqan in western Iran. It's a two colour tesselation. I had to split each shape into three for the EPP.

The fabrics are Oakshotts.  It may not show up too well, but there are three different blues and two different whites.  I wanted them to look like tiles with slightly different glazes.  

But it is not too extravagant; I bought a bundle of fat eighths when they were on offer.  If you work small you can get a lot of fun for your money.  Less than a round of G&Ts in a London bar.  

I like to have an EPP project in the summer when I can work outside.

 Not a bad workspace, is it?

Decided to use thread basting instead of glue because there are so many seams joining in one place.  I find it easier to make the (technical term coming) little flappy bits sit right. The squares you can see on the paper shapes are 1 cm.

The fabric is running out and I've no idea which colours they were and if they are still available.  

So maybe I will stop soon and join all the pieces together. Somehow.  

If you want to see the patterns go here.

More Moorish Patterns

I had coffee with a faithful blog reader last week.  She commented that I hadn't posted recently and its true, I've been on Instagram. But I have been sewing - I'm now on the third arabic / islamic / moorish pattern.

Here are all three together.  They might end up being joined together, or not.

This book by Eric Broug was a great help with this third one.   The spider graph paper was downloaded from Incompetech - I found this worked better than using the polar graph paper I had used before for these circles. 

The cat helped me to draw the lines of the design.  

 I could then print off as many sheets as I wanted.  

The piecing got a bit complicated in the middle, where the shapes are not regular.  It's so easy to end up sewing the wrong edges together but I resorted to numbers and arrows.

The original plan was to stop at four pieces, and the block is currently about 14 inches square, but I might make it bigger. Depends how much of the Oakshott I've got left.  Dithering and floundering as usual.

Joining up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Lattice pattern from Cairo in EPP

"This postcard from Egypt has been knocking around the house for years.  So I am not sure why now was the right time to tackle the pattern on the right in EPP.  

On metric graph paper and it seemed about the right scale so I thought I'd do a small sample piece.  Here it is pinned to the wall so perhaps you can get an idea of the scale from the pins.  The smallest piece is 1cm square. 

The fabrics are all shot cottons, which makes like easier when doing small piecing.  I had a lot of blues to I decided to use them all,  hoping it would give the effect of mosaics or tiles.  

Just after starting this I got a Sewline glue pen.  Glue basting is certainly quicker than traditional basting but I am not sure how easy it will be to remove the paper pieces.

It's good fun trying to work out how to construct a pattern from an image.  EPP was probably the only possible method, at least on this scale.  

There are so many of these fascinating patterns on floors, walls and in books.  I might have to wait a while before I can look at this one, though...

..thanks, Muppet.

If you are on Instagram you might have seen Muppet's paws before. Sorry for the paws overload.

As it's a WIP I'm linking up at Freshly Pieced..

Alhambra Star EPP - Top finished?

I've come to a halt with this piece, which was an attempt to mimic this Moorish tile panel from Alcazar, Seville, in Spain.  Not Alhambra but I'm still calling it Alhambra Star. I used mostly leftover Oakshotts with some Kaffe Fassett shot cottons thrown in.  It is not an exact copy of course. I like the way many of these patterns have an outline which could be done in bias binding, but did not feel ready to tackle that.





You can see a a shed load of these on here - there are so many - and with EPP (English Paper Piecing) you can make any shape you like without worrying about Y seams - as long as you are not in a hurry. A little bit obsessed with these patterns. They seem to rattle around in my tiny brain until I can process them. This is a six-fold pattern based on a 60 degree equilateral triangle but there are many more complex ones.  I just might have a go at doing some more of these and perhaps join them together.  Or not.  Dithering as usual.  

The finished piece is just the right size for a Miss Ted quilt - so she is borrowing it for a while.  It might also make a cushion / pillow or a wall hanging.  I like the way the different blues show up in this photo.

At the moment there are no quilts or minis on my walls.  No room really. But I have also to admit that I have rationalised my fabric addiction guilt by telling myself that everything I make has to be useful. Otherwise I'll be knee deep in it and own a hundred cats. Anyone else share that problem?  

Hmm.  The Germans would have one word for fabric addiction guilt.  How about Stoffgiftschuld?

Alhambra Star EPP

This design started when I was cat-sitting my son and his partner's new slightly crazy rescue cat.  She is very much an outdoor cat, but is having to be kept indoors so she knows where her new home is. She is stir crazy and needs company.  After about an hour running madly from window to window to look at birds and squirrels, she finally settled.  

It looks like one of those intricate Moroccan tilings that you see at the Alhambra - but it is a simplified version based on a 60 degree triangle which could be worked out easily on triangle graph paper.  Many of the islamic tile patterns are far more complex, with many more points in the circle.  I've collected loads of them on a Pinterest board here.

The fabrics I am using are mostly Oakshott scraps.  I find these much easier for small piecing as the fabric is thinner than quilting cotton - and those tiny triangles around the central hexagon are - well, tiny.   But any solid that fits the colour scheme will go in.

Three units are together at the moment.  I would like it to get bigger but we will see.  

I'm linking up with Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day and also with Jessica's Monday Morning Star Count.

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.

WIP Wednesday

These shot cottons have less weight than the fabric usually sold for quilting.  The seams are puckering.   It does not seem to want to lie flat.  At the moment I don't like my giant log cabin block very much.

It also looks dingy (rather than subtle, which is what I going for), but I'm blaming the weather for that.

It needs to get bigger.  Perhaps I will like it again later on. Determined to finish this before starting something else.

Shot Cotton and Liberty

Look at these.  I've been adding and subtracting fabrics for a while.

As usual I can't decide.

Which fabrics? Which design?

  

Maybe a huge log cabin block? 

Yes, maybe.

Still thinking.

I do know one thing though - must get a decent camera.