Wednesday 25 March 2015

WIP Wednesday : A Finished Flimsy

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Do you remember the story of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves? It’s the one where the cave of hidden treasures only opens when you say Open Sesame! For some reason I was reminded of this story when I saw a pattern in A Quilters Mixology by Angela Pingel from Cut to Pieces. I may have been primed as an earlier pattern is called Arabian Nights but when I saw Angela’s ornament design it reminded me of Aladdin’s lamp and then probably, that’s how I got to Ali Baba and the thieves hiding in oil barrels.

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Still for whatever reason this pattern stuck in my head and knowing I didn’t want to make a bed quilt I decided to make a smaller project, a sewing machine cover! Now my machine gets used a lot but you still get dust gathering on the top plus you can see in our kitchen window at night time, through the fancy sheer, let in as much light as you can in the daytime blinds, that I thought were a fantastic idea!

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So a dust protector and a hide the big machine protector was in order. I decided to be really clever and resize Angela’s 16” blocks to 8”, 10” and 12” to make a cover with a big lantern on one side and 2 smaller ones on the other. Sewing tiny curves is a bit fiddly and making the 8” yellow block gave me pause. So much for clever! I found it easier to hand sew the smallest curves in the end and I surprised myself at how close to 1/4” I got my eyeballing it and basically winging it! Sometime you just have to trust yourself and take a chance. I’ll pay more attention next time I decide to re-size someone’s hard thought out design!

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To get this gorgeous continuous curve effect Angela uses a modern update on the traditional drunkards path block. The drunkards path block is essentially a quarter circle on a square background. The wandering path this block makes when combined with others is meant to symbolise the weaving path someone under the influence of alcohol takes on the way home!

Amy Gibson’s free Craftsy 2012 BOM has an excellent tutorial for the traditional block and I’ve seen a cheater method at Missouri Star Quilt Company where you applique a circle to a square and cut it into quarters. Angela uses a modern version of this block with an enlarged circle that goes almost all the way to the edge leaving only 1/4" seam allowance of the background block. When pieced to other blocks this gives a continuous curve which Angela uses to great effect to create Butterflies and lanterns and baubles!

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Of course resizing and doing my own thing left me making this the hard way. I cut out my own templates and forgot that Angela has a trick in her book to make this easier. Make the block over sized and trim down. I didn’t do that and made the traditional way with pins and went very slowly.

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Still it was worth the effort in the end as I really love the curved effect of this block!

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Fabrics were left overs from my Lost in London quilt with a bit of purple added in. And the background came from a piece left over from it the Tape it quilt pattern we played with during the workshop with Brigitte Heitland. So a bit scrap friendly!

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I may have made a mistake in the sizing though. The length is not too bad but will shrink a bit when quilted. 

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The pink looks likes it in the right place but I should have placed the yellow a smidge lower. Oh well!

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Still I now have a finished flimsy. I may just make it a little bit wider! Any suggestions for quilting it? What I have in my head is probably far too ambitious for my hands at this stage in my free motion quilting abilities but its a small project so probably a good one to practice on!

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Linking up to
Sew Fresh QuiltsWIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

27 comments:

  1. Looks lovely, great job with the curves!

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    1. Thanks Stephanie, getting plenty of practice with curves lately and loving them so far. This was the fiddliest to date though!

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  2. This quilt is on my to-do list. It looks like Christmas decorations to me so i've been toying with the idea of doing it in Christmas fabrics. A small version like you're doing sounds like a better idea though, perhaps i should make a mini! A Christmas mini would work better than another Xmas quilt in my house lol! And of course, now I want to start it... :D

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    1. Hope my email reply got through to you Jo - yahoo/google issue meant I didn't get your comment by email - I love the idea of a Christmas version of this!

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  3. It is beautiful, Ruth, and a great lesson about resizing. I think that your hand work was a great idea for the tiny curves. In terms of quilting ideas, I am left with your genie image in your mind after you reading your post, so some kind of swirling curls meant to evoke smoke? I don't know, perhaps there is some better shape that goes along with your Ali Baba musings.

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  4. wowie! Thank you for this post. I love a curve and will check out the link next. Your fabric choices are terrific especially the background against the brights. Every piece is a learning piece. With learning you make mistakes. A quote by Picasso (I think) is knowing which ones to keep! This is a keeper.
    IF you are exploring free motion this is a great project to try new pattern on. LEeAnna at not afraid of color

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  5. That's awesome! Congrats on being very successful in scaling down that block - it doesn't look like it would be very straightforward. . . likely over my head LOL As for quilting - do what you have in mind! I bet it is not over your capabilities! It's a smaller piece and it is perfect to really stretch yourself! I bet you surprise yourself :)

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  6. It looks like fun and makes me want to try it. I was working on my drunkard's path quilt last night. I think you could do something simple in the background, and Echo/spiral in on the baubles.

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  7. Ruth this is so cool! And thank you for all the links you shared! It's going to be a beautiful sewing machine cover! "Open Sesame!" LOL - wow does that bring back childhood play memories.
    Quilting... hmmm... I think if it was me (and my very beginner abilities) I would do vertical straight lines with the lantern / ornament shapes in miniature stitched randomly along the lines. Like ornaments hanging from strings.
    Totally love the fabrics you used!

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  8. Oh those are tiny little curves, looks gorgeous!! I don't think I could them that small.

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  9. It's really neat, love the fabrics and the background. It was worth the challenges - good work.

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  10. love it…nice curved sewing

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  11. Looks like you were having great fun with this project, Ruth. Love the fabrics you chose. Those colours sure shine against that smokey background. Love the baubles design. You are going to have a super fancy machine cover when finished!

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  12. Yay for another finish! Sometimes they are just not frequent enough in the quilt world.

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  13. Gorgeous pattern and love the colours too! That book is on my wishlist for my birthday;)

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  14. Fun stuff! Brilliant way to re-purpose a design... put your own spin on it.
    Love it!

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  15. Fun stuff! Brilliant way to re-purpose a design... put your own spin on it.
    Love it!

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  16. It will look great! Something curvy for the quilting to reflect the lantern shape?
    I know my sewing machine sits in a cloud of dust too. It is dustier in there than anywhere else because of the fabric fluff.

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  17. This is going to look great! I love the curves. Maybe quilt it with swirls or a diagonal grid?

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  18. That is really wonderful- and it was well worth fiddling with the small curved seams to get the different sizes.

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  19. I like it a lot! A lot of S shape for quilting please!

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  20. It's such a cute pattern, It's going to be fabulous! ... I like Lara's idea, I think straight lines look best on a small project like this. You could combine machine quilting and a big stitch in black around the shape.

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  21. Beautiful! How fun is it to discover you've got skills you didn't know you had... like an accurate 1/4 inch seam by hand and altering a pattern to make it fit your project. The blocks are lovely and doing the curves by hand was a good way to make 'em work. As for the quilting, I'd probably do outline and echo quilting around the baubles but I want to encourage you to play. Whatever you're thinking of is probably something good to try. If it sucks... well, it's a small project and not that difficult to pull out. www.quiltartbymegan.com

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    1. Thanks Megan. I love these smaller projects for trying something new. I'm hoping to try more of these in between bigger projects!

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  22. Looks great! If you don't use contrasting thread some "mistakes" gets hidden in the print :) I'm sure you'll do fine!

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  23. This is going to be a stunning machine cover!

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