more wensleydale learning

wensleydale #3

 

these wensleydale blocks are becoming addictive! i made this number 3 block with no problems at all, including getting my directional prints to line up correctly. that was a mini triumph. 

i'm deriving a lot of pleasure from selecting the various prints for each block. i've realized that i really enjoy quilts that have blocks where each fabric pairing chance is like a little project all its own. that's one of the reasons i enjoy the crossroads quilt so much and why these blocks are so fun for me. quilts composed this way are like a series of mini projects that add up to one big project. 

i was a little hesitant to add that teal and orange DS floral fabric that's in the inner diamond. it felt a little bright for the direction this quilt is moving. but after considering how well the brights and moodier fabrics in the original wensleydale quilt from the book play together, i thought it would be a nice touch to use this brighter fabric, especially if i kept it to one of the smaller pieces where it would accent rather than stand out too much. i'm quite happy with it.

the way the center rectangle plaid turned out slightly wavy i'm less pleased with. wovens can be difficult and a little stretchy. i plan to use this particular one several times in the quilt, so i am going to have to be more careful with it in future. the woven stripe i used for the outer rectangle worked much better.

wensleydale #4

i've decided i want to use either a floral or a plaid in the center of each block. i've also decided that it will make my life a lot easier if i try to keep the directional prints to the diamond sections and not use them in the rectangle pieces. by the time i made this block a few days after i'd figured out the directional trick, i forgot what i'd done. at least i have all those stripes radiating in a similar manner this time. 

after using that teal DS floral in block 3, i knew i'd need to use some more teals in the quilt. unfortunately, i don't have many at all in my stash! i did find this joel dewberry daisy block print that i ordered from hawthorne earlier this year. 

i was really excited when i found hawthorne supply company had a lot of designers that you can order fabrics from on a print-to-order basis. i found some amazing colorways of some old favorite JD prints, like this daisy woodcut print. unfortunately, when they arrived, i was disappointed in the substrate it's printed on. it's stiff, which is good for cutting, but also feels coarse and doesn't have a very nice hand. i hope it washes up better.  anyway, it was a good color for this block and i'm at least pleased with how it looks.

*note - apparently there are two quilting cotton options and the website says the quality was upgraded in april 2024. i'm not sure which substrate i got, but i did notice you can order samples of any digitally printed fabric line, which would be a good idea before ordering lots like i did.

wensleydale #5

maybe you noticed something else i started doing with block #3 - making a "victory lap" around each block's perimeter. since i'm not trimming the blocks or removing the papers until they're all completed, i thought it prudent to make a stabilizing stitch on the edges to keep the pieces in shape and from fraying.

this block 5 is a little brighter and more color dense than the other blocks. i didn't use a low-volume print except in the center piece, and calling the orange plaid print low-volume is pushing it. i also should have used at least one print that wasn't so saturated in color, one that was a little subdued or faded. i didn't balance the bright and subdued fabrics as well in this one as the previous blocks. i thought the outer grey was going to be less color dense because it's a neutral color, but it is also quite high-volume in tone. this was no deal breaker for the block, but just another lesson learned as i hone my fabric selection and matching skills. i'm banking on the block blending in with the others and playing nicely with the quilt as a whole. 

i'd also forgotten about my directional print trick, as seen in the middle navy stripe rectangle. this was getting frustrating. then i remembered something else i'd forgotten about - compensating for cutting changes. i was originally using the cutting sizes recommended by "the quilted chicken" in their cutting video, but i found them unnecessarily large and tweaked them a little. this required changing my cuts a little so the angles would stay the same, which i hadn't done, therefore producing the wrongly-angled triangles i was having difficulty making behave. once i figured this out, i got much better results in the outer grey rectangle. 

i'm looking forward to my next blocks but i'm also feeling like i may need to do some fabric shopping. i don't have enough of the woven fabrics or teal in my stash. i may make a trip to the more traditional shop in a neighboring town at some point to see what they've got. until then, i'll keep trying to get a block a day done when i can.

learning to wensleydale

once i'd made the first wensleydale block i wasn't sure if i'd gotten it out of my system for the moment or not. i calculated that if i did a block a day for two months i'd have a completed top before thanksgiving, but i wasn't committing to that. the first one took so long i couldn't see being able to spend that much time each day. i was definitely thinking i would not be doing much wensleydale-ing right away.

but the next day i found myself pulling out another template sheet and making my next block. i told myself i wanted to see how long a single block took when i wasn't having to teach myself to fpp in the process.

block two turned out pretty well, but it wasn't a quick make either because i had several home ec/learning moments along the way! 

the first round i forgot to fold back the pieces before i trimmed the seam allowance and chopped off two side triangles before looking at the front to see why i had such large trimmings. oh no! one of the leftover pieces was big enough to reuse, but i had to cut a whole new rectanlge cut into triangles to get the one piece i still needed because i didn't know how to just cut the one odd triangle. that was frustrating.

but i got if fixed and moved on, deciding that in the future i would trim each seam allowance after sewing the piece and then press the piece open.

if you've never done fpp before, you might be confused about the process and what i'm saying. here's the basics:

1. place the first piece down, right side up, on the back of the paper/opposite side of the printed template. you hold it up to a light or use a lightbox to make sure you have the piece in place.

2. lay the next piece right side down on top, flip the paper over, and sew down the line between the two pieces on the template, backstitching at the beginning and end.

3. flip over so the fabric is facing down, fold back the paper along the seam line, and trim a 1/4" seam allowance for that seam. unfold the paper.

4. turn back over so the fabric is facing up; press the piece open. lay the next piece on, right side down, and repeat.

so where i went wrong here was i forgot to move the sewn piece, which i had already pressed open, out of the way when i trimmed the seam allowance; hence the chopping off.

this is what it looks like when you do the seam allowance trimming correctly. i folded the paper back along the seam and measured the seam allowance 1/4" away from that.

i was playing with how to get my directional prints to line up better inside their shapes.  if you look at the grey plaid piece in the middle rectangle (either in the first photo or below) you'll see that after i put two triangles in place and they fan out from the triangle rather than look aligned as a rectangle, i tried to get the other two pieces straighter and succeeded. i was glad to get them straighter, but feel it would have been better to have them all angled consistently.

and this brings up one disadvantage of the fpp method over the alternate template construction method for this quilt: template pieces can be cut how they will appear in the quilt but fpp is more risky and requires a lot more thought and care if you want a certain orientation and outcome in your prints, especially the directional ones.

one idea i tried was marking the seam allowance on the back of the piece before i sewed it in place. this helped a little, but since i was putting the piece roughly in place then flipping everything over, there is often slight shifting or i didn't guess well where the piece should go.

(you get a good view of my radiating vs. straight plaid pieces in this photo above.)

the next idea i hit on for better fabric placement was to trim down the finished shape before moving on to the next round of pieces. in this case, that meant trimming the golden floral piece to the seam allowance size it would eventually be before adding the brown checkered print. the way i was doing it, the outer edges of a piece didn't get trimmed down until the next piece was added and then the seam allowance was cut. 

i hadn't seen this extra trimming step suggested in any of my fpp research, but i decided to try it. i folded the paper back along the seam i was about to sew, measured out 1/4", and trimmed. then i could line up the new piece with the seam allowance and everything would be much straighter. 

it worked great!

but then when i flipped over the piece to trim for the seam allowance on the third corner (above), i forgot to measure out 1/4" for the seam allowance and cut right along the seam instead. this was a big ouch. it required me unpicking not only that corner but i had to replace the golden triangle, first unpicking the other brown corner triangle already sewn on its other side, as well. i wasn't sure i would be able to salvage the block at this point.

getting that golden triangle out was no small project. seam ripping with fpp is the worst because the seam size is so small. i finally resorted to hacking the piece out and then removing the little leftover bits.

i did do one good thing here. i realized i didn't have to cut the whole rectangle again to replace the botched corner. i made a rectangle half the starting size and then cut the piece i needed from that so i didn't have 3 larger leftover pieces, but rather just two. i managed to save myself a little fabric there.

that was smart of me, but my next move wasn't. like i say, i can't make this stuff up. i seriously don't know how i manage to bungle things so badly. can you see what i did when adding the triangle? i flipped it completely the wrong way. i put it on the wrong side of the seam allowance. oh, me oh, my.

somehow i still make quilts.

there we go - the golden triangle is all fixed up and i put the adjacent brown corner back in place over it. then i trimmed it correctly, ready for the final corner piece to be added.

now i could place the corner triangle on, lined up with the seam allowance i pretrimmed.

in case you forgot - this is how it all ended. 

yes, half of the grey plaid is straight(ish) and there is still a small hole in the seam of one brown corner triangle where it's supposed to be seam to the golden part (no idea how/why that is, but i'm dealing with it later). all in all, though, i really like the look of this block and am grateful for the lessons it taught me.

i also decided with this block to wait to trim the outside edges until all blocks are done so i don't dull my blade prematurely by trimming through the paper each time. that will all be done in one go before i join the blocks into a top. whenever i do more blocks and get them all done, that is. obviously, i still don't know how long it takes to do a block because this one took way longer than should be necessary due to all my mistakes.

pincushion, finally!

i've needed a new pincushion for . . . i don't even know how long. since the dawn of sewing time around here, i suppose. this summer, some wrapped up binding has been standing in for the awaited arrival and the rest of my pins just live in the box. that binding is about to go on it's quilt and trying to get pins out of the box is a risky venture. so a pincushion was in order.

 i've got several patterns for some adorable heather bailey pincushions (supplies for some, too) as well as the countless patterns in my sewing library. but other than the strawberry i started years ago, i just haven't buckled down and made one. there always seem to be more pressing sewing projects to spend my limited time on. until this week!

i was browsing ayumi takahashi's book patchwork, please! and decided to make the pincushion on the cover. all it needed was a few scaps. i have plenty of those. i even had some linens stashed away from when we made headbands at girls weekend 2010.

 i selected some pink and pink-with-green fabrics from the scrap basket. for my linen, i chose a shot charcoal.

i've never done foundation paper piecing before or sewn a 3d shape, so this was out in exploratory waters for me. aside from it being maybe difficult to work with because it was small, i figured a simple project like this was a good choice for a beginner.

the books directions, however, were not extremely clear for a beginner like me. there was a certain level of assumed knowledge i was lacking and some directions that were just unclear. i was able to figure out how to do everything, but think the explanations could have been more precise and a few more diagrams would have been appreciated.

for example, in the paper piecing instruction section, you're told to temporarily glue the first scrap to the paper pattern, wrong sides together. then you're immediately told "with right sides together, fold the pattern down and cut 1/4" away from the paper." this thoroughly confused me! i thought it was a typo until i kept looking over everything and realized it just wanted me to fold the paper out of the way to create a 1/4" seam allowance on the scrap. "fold the paper down, right sides together" would have been more helpful. to me, at least.

when it came to the pattern for the pincushion, diagrams would have been helpful. having never done a 3d shape before, i didn't understand how to place all the pieces for sewing until i had played around with them a bit. but i did get there.

also, i do really think there is an incorrect measurement in that pattern. the little square patches are 2" sq, and you're supposed to end up with a patch 2 1/2" sq so that you have a seam allowance on all sides. yet the fabric scrap for the middle is supposed to be cut at 2" x 1.5", so i was missing the seam allowance in a few places.

the linen scraps were all to be cut the same size, which meant a lot of waste for the tiniest piece at the bottom and not quite enough for the piece across the top. i quickly discovered i could use pieces cut off the sides for the tiniest bottom triangle, which saved me 3 scraps. in the future, i think i would cut 8 rectangles as called for (2" x 1.5") and 4 rectangles at 2.5" x 1.5" instead of 16 at 2" x 1.5".

 i think that's why i had gaps in some spots, like in the photo above.  the gaps fell in the seam allowance, so when i sewed the top on, it all seems to have worked out, so i guess it's okay. but i'd rather be safe than sorry. if this were a project that was going to be washed ever, those little gaps might cause issues.

it was pretty easy sewing that little box together - i was surprised! i thought i'd have difficulty manipulating the pieces so they didn't get sewn together in the wrong places, but i had no problems at all.

when it came time to stuff the box, i got out my stuffing scraps. this box of strings and cuttings too small to be good for anything else has been piling up in hopes of being used as stuffing in projects that require some.

 so instead of polyfil, i used the strings. the washed bits from my epp project were especially soft and cushy feeling. so glad there was a use for them! i even used the leftover pieces cut off of this project when the piecing was all trimmed up.

 so here she is - not as crisp looking as ayumi's cover girls, but not too shabby, either. i did have a small mismatch along seams, so one of the patterned fabric pieces is slightly off in the center, but the button seems to be covering that up. ayumi used fabric covered buttons for her pincushions, but i didn't have kits for any small enough for this project. not wanting to delay with a trip to the store, i selected a sparkly green button from my button stash. (oh, yes, i have one of those, too.)

overall, this was a fun and quick project. heck, if i can do it, anyone probably can! i will likely make more of these if i have a need for a quick gift. i do like that it uses up scraps and that i got to dig into my stuffing scraps and button stash, as well.

in general, the book is completely adorable! there are several projects i'm itching to make, like the storybook quilt and pencil cases (zip pouches - another first!). and i really, really want to figure out where ayumi gets all her great fabrics. japan? i hope not. i sure wish she'd credited the sources so i could get my hands on some. her fabric taste is awesome.

my only other wish for the book? a cd with all the patterns on it so you could print out what you wanted instead of photocopying or tracing them. that would have been the icing on the cake. i might just have to join the zakka along 2.0 now!

linking in with finish it up friday at crazy mom quilts.