Friday, May 24, 2013

Problem Solving in Quilting

One of the things that I absolutely love about quilting is that there are usually multiple ways to accomplish a design ... and no one right answer.  Last night, I pulled out an old unfinished project with a few challenges–we won't call them problems ... yet.  One of the challenges that had held me back was my vision of some abstract flower shapes, made from diamonds that would be appliquéd to a pieced background. Appliquéing all those edges straight and keeping the points pointy intimidated me.

Pieces and Parts of an Old UFO

LittleDaisyBlockIn the way that one project can inform another, I wondered if I could use English paper piecing as an appliqué preparation technique and keep all those edges straight, points, pointed and flowers looking all the same.

I wanted to maintain the same basic diamond shape–the diamonds are used in another part of the quilt.  I remembered this Little Daisy block that I had made earlier this year and thought it would work.  I used the petal and center octagon templates for this block, which were intended for hand-piecing, to create paper shapes for EPP for my test.

If you are interested, you can download the Little Daisy templates from my Freebies page.

Here's my EPP test in progress, beside the original plan. As you can see, I'm also thinking the petals would look better scrappy and that the blue petals at the base (inspired by the traditional Carolina Lily block) don't work in the new shape.  The stems and leaves will be blue on this red-blue-cream quilt.

A New Approach

I'm joining the linky party for Angie and Billie's Hexie Friday  ... and hoping that those with experience with appliqué of EPP shapes will offer me some tips and/or advice about my idea.

I'm also joining the Weekend Update on the Block Lotto.  (It's worth the click over, just to see what Linda's making from some colorful lotto blocks she won.)

Teapot and cozy - close upIf you came by as part of Hexie Friday to check on my progress on the tea coozy made from Regina's Star Flowers,  I finished it earlier this week (yay!) and you can read more about it here:

Star Flower Tea Cozy - Done (but Far from Perfect)

6 comments:

Carrie P. said...

looks like using the paper pieces is going to work for you.

Angie in SoCal said...

Sophie, how about cutting the center hexie in half before you attach it to the four, then make a paper template for two diamonds and sew them to the center of the flower to resemble the one on left and sewn like EPP. And thanks for linking to It's a Hexie Friday!

BillieBee (billiemick) said...

Gorgeous Reds!

Terri said...

Oh Sophie I LOVE your hand pieced flowers! Anything in patriotic colors grabs me every time. :) Though I do see your dilemma as to appliqueing them to the background. I think you found a great solution.

Terri Coty

Rosa said...

wonderful hexies and pp block!1

Anonymous said...

Either flower looks good. Maybe I missed something, but why couldn't the one on the left be pieced with paper pieces?

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