Flying Geese - PQ 13.6

It's hard to believe that this is the last challenge for Project Quilting 13.  The time has just seemed to fly by, which is maybe why Trisha chose Flying Geese as the theme for the final challenge?

I laughed a little when I saw the topic for the challenge, because my entry for the first challenge consisted of bright flying geese blocks made into a potholder.  I honestly considered making a matching one for this challenge, because ... matching potholders, right? But I ultimately decided against that idea.

I have several patterns that use flying geese, and a couple of them are for baby quilts.  I always like to make baby quilts to have on hand to gift to new mothers.  But unfortunately, I knew that this was going to be another short week for getting the challenge completed.  I am going on a quilt retreat with my guild, leaving on Thursday and not returning until Sunday evening.  The retreat center is about an hour from me, and is in a very rural area. I wanted to get my project done, posted and linked by Wednesday afternoon,  just in case the retreat center doesn't have a good internet connection. 

So again, I needed to have a small project.  I considered another potholder, because I can always use them,  and started looking around for ideas.  I remembered a block that I had seen that had geese flying in a circle. This looked like a possibility until I realized that the block finished at 12 inches square.  I resized the pattern so that it would finish at 8 inches, looked at all those tiny paper-pieced pieces and said Nope!

I am not a big fan of paper piecing.  I realize that it is great for projects that require small pieces and sharp points, but I just can't seem to get my head around working upside down and backwards!  

But, Project Quilting calls the weekly projects 'challenges', right?   So I challenged myself to do a small paper pieced project and (maybe) get better at it.  Using a discarded Starbucks cup sleeve as a pattern,  I made a paper pieced flying geese cup cozy.  

My very first seam had to be ripped out because I had put the wrong fabric on top and the goose fabric went the wrong way.  That didn't bode well for the project!  Instead of balling it up and throwing it in a corner, which I was sorely tempted to do, I persevered.  I got out the smallest seam ripper that I own and took out those tiny stitches.  Fortunately, the edges of the paper were intact, so I didn't need to draw a new pattern.  

Taking a deep breath, I started again.  Once I got into it, it really wasn't so bad.  Lining up the fabric on the wrong side of the paper is a bit fiddly, but I only had to rip out a few more seams before I got it done.  

I had planned to overlap the edges slightly and stitch it across the edge to finish it.   You know what they say about best laid plans, right?   It turns out that the finished size wasn't long enough to go around my mug with any overlap.  Well, darn!!!  Starbucks cups must be narrower than the cups in my house.  

I really didn't want to start over.  After mulling over the problem, I realized that a lot of cup cozies use a button and elastic in order to let them fit around multiple sized mugs.  So I dug into my button box and found a coordinating button, and grabbed some cord elastic that was left over from making masks.  TA-DA!  It fits not only the cup that I planned to use it on, but it also wraps around and through the handle of many of the mugs in my house!

                                         

So that's a wrap for Project Quilting 13.6!  Yes, pun intended!

Rhythm and Repetition - PQ 13.5

The fifth challenge for Project Quilting year 13 was posted this past Sunday.  I really enjoy the creativity that PQ engenders in me, but I also bemoan the fact that some weeks I just don't have enough time to do the challenge justice.  

This is one of those busy weeks.  You would think, as a retiree, that I would have all the time in the world to devote to quilting.  Sometimes, that is the case.  This week, not so much.  

I belong to a Concert Chorale, and this weekend is our annual Classical concert.  We are singing works by Bach, Brahms, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Dvořák - in their original languages, plus a few American folk songs, 'show tunes' and spirituals.  Needless to say, I've been putting a lot of time into learning the music and learning the languages.  We have not one, but two dress rehearsals this week, and two concerts this weekend.  

Today is Ash Wednesday, and I am the cantor for the Mass this evening.  The music minister sent out the song list on Monday,  and there are two songs that are new to me, so I had to spend the time to learn them.  

Much as I love singing, this is all cutting into the time that I have available to come up with a creative project for Rhythm and Repetition!

When I read the blog post about the challenge, I really wanted to do something Escher-esque.  I have always been fascinated by his work.  I also have an excellent book written by Jinny Beyer about tesselations that has been begging to be used. I think that it would be fairly easy to design a simple tesselation and turn it into a quilt, and I would learn a lot in the process. 

But knowing the time restraints that I am under this week, I compromised.  I made a small project so that I could complete it in fairly short order, but I used techniques and shapes that are new to me so that I could learn something new.  I've only done set-in seams once before, and I have never put binding on a quilt with 60 degree angles on the border.  So I re-learned how to do set-in seams using my  sewing machine, and I learned how to bind outside angles other than 90 degrees. I also had to figure out how to fill in the area between the star and the edge.  Hint - it involves rectangles cut on the diagonal.  

9 1/2 x 10 inches

The shape that I've never used before was the truncated diamond used to make the star.  It was cut using a ruler called a mini Hex-N-More by Julie Hermann of Jaybird Quilts.  I think that she calls it a Jewel.  It is basically a diamond with a point cut off. It could be pieced by sewing a half-hexagon to one side of an equilateral triangle, but using the ruler takes out that extra seam. 

The repetition comes in a couple of  different ways.  Obviously, the jewel shape is repeated six times around the center hexagon. But a more subtle repetition is the hexagon motif itself.  There is the one in the center, and the whole project is a hexagon, but drawing a line connecting the peaks also creates a  hexagon, as does drawing a line connecting the inside angles. 

I'm not really sure what to call the end product.  It's a little too big to be a potholder, but a little too small to be a table topper.  I guess that it could also be a big mug rug or a candle mat....Whatever it is, I'm done and I'm happy with it.