Mrs Vigors - next step

It is amazing how quickly this quilt is coming together.  I now have all 4 of the border pieces done, and have started cutting up for the next border, the "dog tooth" border.  Last night I got out one of my boxes of "lights" and cut 36 triangles from the one box.

 This border will be 3 1/2" wide, 18 pieces long on each side, so I need 18 light fabrics and 18 dark fabrics.  These are some of the lights.

 They all came out of this box.  I put the box on my side table as I was watching TV, and with my sandpaper board on my lap, just picked out one fabric at a time, and drew around the template.  Took me about 2 hours to do 36 triangles.  TV is rally bad at the moment, so nothing lost there.

 

This is tonight's box of light fabrics.  Won't be quite so easy when I have to do the dark fabrics, as I will need to use several boxes for them.

I am doing lots of preparing as my sister and niece arrived for a visit later this week, and will not have time to do it while they are here, but will still have time to sew as we sit about.  It is not quite so hot now - great relief.

Just made it in time

Rolling Star block

How quickly did the 15th of the month roll around?  It was just Christmas, then New Year, and now we are mid-way through January.  I thought I had heaps of time to get this pattern complete and on the website.  Suddenly I had a sewing day on Saturday (that was nice) then my grand-daughter Skylar came to visit, and that turned into 2 days, then John got sick and we had a visit to the doc today.  It is not like I had to sew the block, or anything really hard, but I did have to turn it into a PDF and upload the whole thing.

So this month we have a nice easy block for the Pieces of the Past, only 2 shapes plus the background corners.  Bet you can have it done before you go to bed tonight!


I have been getting lots of work done on my new medallion quilt and have been playing with border fabrics.  I will give you a little look.

I REALLY really wanted to use this red fabric.  I have had 3 metres of it in my cupboard for about 3 years, and I bought it because I love it.  As yet I have not found the right use for it.  Ok, so this is the time!!  Yeah!  No, I have been talked out of it by my lovely artistic friends, and they are right.  I am going to use the less "in your face" but subtle green.  The red goes back in the cupboard for the "just Perfect" project when it comes along.  BTW, these pieced borders take no time at all.  If you want to come to one of my hand piecing workshops, please get in touch.

From February I will be back doing my usual 1st Saturday of the month "sit n sew" at Hettie's Patch, on Port Rd, Hindmash.  Now, a new one, I will be at Sewing Sanctuary at Aldinga, on the 3rd Saturday of the month starting in February.  Please contact me Wendy@Legendandlace.com, or either of the shops for further details.

Out of the closet

 

This is the name suggested by my friend, Maureen, for the reproduction of the Mrs Vigors quilt.  The reason behind the name is that all the fabrics will be from the cupboard, no new fabrics purchased.

 This is what it looks like so far.  All pieced by hand using templates.  In the description of the original quilt it says that it was done "over papers" - is this describing English Paper Piecing?  I was going to do it by EPP but could not see how to do a curved seam, so opted for traditional piecing.  I quite like doing it this way.  I can bring out my scrap box and sit at the table and draw and cut out heaps of pieces and then spend the next couple of days sewing them together,  Takes no time at all, as you can see by the above photo.

 

 I made the centre medalion shape, and appliqued it to the circle of background fabric.  Then I pieced the circular edge, and attached that.

You can see here how I cut away behind the centre of the quilt.  this fabric is not wasted as I used it again as the setting triangles for the next border.

 I turned under the outer edge along the drawn seam line, tacked it under, then tacked the whole thing to the larger squared background pieced by applique.

To start with I thought I would be using the design by Petra Prins in Quiltmania magazine as shown in the previous post, but on further reflection, used only the centre templates, and decided to make it a little more like the original.  I changed the corners of the first border back to the original, and the next border, the wide one, I am doing at 7" (about) which I think is closer to the original.  The Quiltmania instructions are for a 4" border.  I will recalculated the measurement once I work out the piecing of the subsequent border