Merrily We Roll Along

With Mr. Main Street glued to the television watching basketball, I've had some extra time to sew and made some real progress on La Passacaglia in the last week.  The third big rosette is now in place in the upper left corner.

One big rosette to go, along with some of the small rosettes and some partials to fill in along the edges.  The end is in sight for a project I thought would take forever!

The top has grown big enough to be unwieldy as I sew on additional pieces, hard to hold and manipulate, hard to line up the pieces exactly.  I'm thinking of removing some of the paper pieces, just leaving then in around the edges for stability.  My hope is that this will make the top easier to manipulate.  Does anyone have experience with EPP and want to offer advice on this issue?  I'm also wondering if it is worth it to save the paper pieces for re-use?

The Wall Street Journal Comes In Handy

I've made some progress on my La Passacaglia project, my English paper piecing, extremely slow going, hand sewing project.  In my last post on this topic, it was this far along:

Now I'm here:

I've added three more rosettes to the upper left side.

Wondering what connection the Wall Street Journal could possibly have to quilting?   I used pages from the newspaper to make a template the size I want my finished quilt to be.  My plan is for this quilt to be a wall hanging, to hang in a specific space in my house.  This means it needs to be a little bit smaller than the original in the book with the directions so I need to make some modifications.  I taped newspaper pages together to the size I want (roughly 40" by 55").  

With the quilt on top of the newspaper template, I can see how much more work I need to do.  Importantly, I can see where I need to insert partial rosettes along the edges to square up the flimsy.  I don't want to piece a lot of rosettes only to wack off large parts of them. 

I'll use rulers to square up the final top but this newspaper template is a big help in the meantime.

The Quilt & Sewing Fest of New Jersey

On Saturday, I went to the Quilt & Sewing Fest of New Jersey.  It is an annual show put on by the Mancuso organization but a smaller operation than their fall show that is nearby in Pennsylvania.

I started with the exhibit quilts and this one quickly caught my eye.  Humor and quilting, so perfect together!  Fortunately, Mr. Main Street is no Brad; the Mister is pretty much oblivious to how much fabric I have (and how much I've spent on it).

Dottie"s Lament by Suzanne Bower, Dublin, PA

Here is another eye-catching quilt.  It is an abstract depiction of a flower bed at the peak of summer, pieced in half hexagons.  

Summer Peaks, by Irene Marchetto, Chatham, NJ

Summer Peaks, detail of the piecing

I'm afraid I'm getting jaded.  Perhaps it is the impact of the internet.  But I did not see many quilts I really liked this year.  The exhibits included the award winning quilts from the 2016 Mid-Atlantc Quilt Competition (another Mancuso show, it took place in Feb. in Virginia).  Yes, the award winners were spectacular but most were very densely machine quilted and I am not really a fan; I like a quilt that drapes.  The other exhibit quilts were  mini collections from various places.  For example, I saw several Kaffe Fassett quilts from Liza Priory Lucy but they look familiar, like I've seen them before at other shows.  

What made the show worthwhile for me was several new-to-me vendors with unique merchandise.  I picked up some Oakshott fat quarters from Pinwheels, purveyors of Daiwabo taupes from Japan, ball and chain zippers, wood buttons, as well as the Oakshott.  Her booth was very attractive and welcoming, lovely to browse.

Then I discovered Atelier D'Isabelle, selling her original design stitcheries in kit form, along with linen fat quarters and trims from France.  (Isabelle is actually French and her website is in French.)  Really cute and different; I bought two kits that can be made into small pictures or pillows.  

No, I haven't finished mine already.  These photos are from the booth.

Both L'atelier D'Isabelle and Pinwheels will be at the AQS show in Lancaster, PA next week.  If you are going, I recommend you check them out.