Secondary Pattern Quilt Challenge – Progress Report

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!!!! I’m soooooo excited!!

It really feels like Christmas in my sewing room today! I think I just gave myself the best present ever. ….. 

Did you ever have that feeling of intensely looking forward to Christmas because you knew you were getting that present that you’ve always wanted? But then there was also a little bit of trepidation that that “ultimate” present wouldn’t live up to your expectations? And then Christmas finally arrives and the present is even better than you’d hoped for, and the elation is enormous? You can tell I’m excited, because I’m babbling….. 

Anyway, I’ve just had one of those rare experiences.  I bought myself something, I’ve mustered the courage to try it out, and opening the box wasn’t actually the pinnacle of the experience. Yes!!!!! High fives all round! 

Let me tell you what I’ve been up to……

Progress on my latest quilt

A couple of weeks back, I alluded to the fact that I’d bought myself a couple of new toys at the latest guild show. The first was a template set for Winding Ways, which I am using for my Christmas in July/Secondary Pattern combo challenge quilt. You can see the start of that process here.

Since then I have been working really hard on that quilt. The finished quilt (I hope it will be finished!) will be revealed tomorrow on my stop on the Christmas in July Hop with Carol of Just Let me Quilt. But before then, let’s look at some of the details of the quilt I am going to show you tomorrow and what’s got me all excited in the process.

Secondary Pattern Play: July Island Batik Ambassador Challenge

My Christmas in July Quilt features fabrics that were given to me by Island Batik to use as an Ambassador. This month Ambassadors were challenged to make a quilt that displayed a secondary pattern.

I have already showed you my primary block for this challenge. Here it is again. It is three-quarters of a Winding Ways block, done turned-edge appliqué style.

Here is my finished pile of pieces ready to set into 16 of these quilt blocks.

The Island Batik fabrics I have chosen are: Whip Cream Cherwell,  Grasshopper Fountain, Teal Fountain, Teal Cherwell, Shark Mini Springs and Shark Floral Vine  batiks from the Victoria and Albert line of the latest Spring collection.

I made up my quilt blocks with glue. Yup…. you read that right. Elmer’s Washable School Glue, to be precise. I assembled the blocks on parchment paper (baking paper) and used Elmer’s glue under all the turned edges to join them. I heat set with my iron to hold everything together. Like this:

Then I sewed the glued blocks to each other using Aurifil #2887 40wt thread supplied to me in my Ambassador supplies. I did this before I sewed down the appliqués so that I could reposition any points of the Winding Ways units if I needed to.

Then I took my very fragile , mostly glued flimsy and appliquéd around all the turned-edged pieces with a free-motion blind-hem stitch with cream DecoBob thread to produce my quilt top. 

Taa daa….. here are my secondary designs.

Secondary Designs often leave big spaces

One of the things that happens quite often in secondary designs is the creation of large spaces where 4 block corners meet. These areas are great spaces for adding new elements such as appliqué.

So that is what I did.

Remember that I decided this quilt was to be a celebration of cold Christmases, since our Christmases are usually Hot? Well, those large spaces looked to me like they were begging for snowflakes. Like the paper ones that the whole quilt reminds me of.

But I was getting really pressed for time. How to cut four reasonably intricate snowflakes, accurately and quickly? Folds upon folds of fabric and fusible webbing do not cut well like paper….. I tried that years ago and gave up.

And that brings me back to why I am soooooooo excited. Enter my new toy!

I used my prize money from our State Guild Festival of Quilts as a down-payment on a Brother scanNcut CM900

It wasn’t quite an impulse purchase, as I had been thinking about getting one of these or something similar for a while. But with some prize money in my pocket as part-payment and a show discount for taking a demo machine, the time felt right. And besides, I got blisters from the scissors cutting the pieces out for “Shadows of Auntie Green” in a hurry, so my Occ. Health and Safety department (i.e. me) said such a machine would be a good investment. 🙂

But then we went bush to Arkaroola for a week and I didn’t have a chance to play with it. And I am always a little bit intimidated by expensive new technology anyway……so I needed a good reason to get going with it. Desperation always serves well! Time was running out to get my Christmas quilt finished……

But I needn’t have feared. My new favourite little Brother (sorry little bro, you are superseded!) was so simple to use, even under mild pressure. And it already had an eight-pointed snowflake stored in memory, so I could by-pass the stages of learning how to design and transfer my own cut files to just concentrate on learning the cutting feature first.  How thoughtful! 🙂

Here it is, cutting out my first fusible-adhesive backed fabric snowflake. Heart in my mouth! It took 2 minutes once I pressed “start” to do the whole job. I didn’t ruin any fabric or the cutting mat! Oh joy!

Just two minutes!! To get this perfectly cut shape. Happy, happy, happy.  Oh the possibilities…….!!!! Now I can cut more shapes than I can possibly ever sew. I could easily create a UFO a day! hahahaha! 

But I did sew these shapes. I appliquéd them down with silver Gütermann metallic thread to make them sparkly.

And that’s all you’re seeing for now! Sorry, I feel like this post has come to a very abrupt end….. update: the full reveal and the rest of the story can now be found here. 🙂

Until tomorrow,  my friends!

You will have to wait until tomorrow’s hop for the rest of the quilt….. while I now sneak off to quietly embellish and bind it. Hey, I’ve got a whole day to get it done, and the kids went back to school this morning……. should be easy right?! Famous last words. See you again tomorrow for “Christmas in July” meets “Colour Inspiration Tuesday“. It’ll be fun!

P.S. The third tutorial for the Sew Early for Christmas  blog hop is at Days Filled with Joy today. She has organised you a delightful Christmas cracker project. My turn next week!

And, of course, the Christmas in July blog hop starts today too at Just Let Me Quit.  Seven Christmasy posts today, and 35 over the week, including me tomorrow! See you then.

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