Miss Porter and a Mountmellick update

As I said in my last post, my word for the year is Focus. Already I can feel myself wavering, but a quick look at my list and I decided that a new start at the beginning of a new year was in order. One of my favorite quilting books is Primarily Quilts by Di Ford. I just love her attention to detail and working on one of her quilt designs pushes me both technically and in fabric selection and that is what I was searching for in this new start. That and the fact that I wanted to work in a certain color palette that suits my need for calm after the busyness of the holidays. While many of my quilts are made for the process only, I really do like displaying them in my home. I felt I was needing/wanting a quilt that would fit into my main living space during the winter when I like to use a more monochromatic color scheme. Here is my winter blooms hanging in the space.

As you can see the space is very open and as I love all shades of teal and aqua those are the only permanent colors in the space. I love changing out the pillows and quilts by season to change the feel of the room and was looking to make something to hang over the couch which sits opposite the TV and my Winter Blooms quilt. The Miss Porter quilt is one from my list and I had been collecting the fabrics for awhile.

I began with the feathered star block and just let me say that while I have been working on improving my piecing, something went wrong. I will save the specifics for another post as I am happy to say I was able to salvage my mistake and here is the block without the shark tooth border. I had fun picking the motifs for the broderie perse in the center. The original had flowers but I wasn't happy with my selection of flowers as I really wanted to bring a bit of teal into the block. My finished block before the addition of the shark tooth border.

Here is the block on the couch with the border ready for applique - I am loving how pretty this looks in the room.

Next up were the 5" star blocks and while making these I decided that it was time to double check my seam allowance as they were ending up just a tiny bit too big. I could trim the finished blocks but I really prefer to adjust my needle position and see if that helps. Sure enough by moving it just one potosion to the left my block size improved and I had discovered one of the problems in the creation of my feathered star. So here is where I am right now on the design wall. The feathered star shark tooth border is awaiting applique and then this can be sewn together.

At the same time I am working on this leader ender project made with 1 1/2" cut squares of my bright scraps. My sewing machine is having issues picking up the first few stitches of a seam so having a leader ender project on the go is a must. I am getting ready to turn these blocks into something useful soon!

And finally a quick peek at the continuing hand quilting on Mountmellick, Quiltmania magazine's 2014 mystery by Di Ford. I have not done much hand quilting in the last few years and I am enjoying this so much. It is fun selecting a new quilting pattern for each round and I love the dimension achieved with this wool batting. I really hate marking a quilt so I do as much free hand as possible. However, this round I am marking as I go by simply tracing around a plastic template that I made to fit the space and it seems to be working out well.

Time to get back to stitching!

 

 

 

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