Couldn’t wait to start using some of the beautiful Mettler thread in my sewing room, so started a couple of new projects that I had fabric for (mostly):
First up is a black and white quilt -- I had a jelly roll composed of 20 black strips and 20 white strips that came in a recent Quilty Box as well as a black & white print jelly roll called B and W by Kim Schaefer for Andover Fabrics. I sewed four patches from the black and white solids and made 5-1/2 bars from the dark and light prints. All the components are made for a Strips and 4 Patch Quilt that I saw in a Missouri Star Quilt Company video on YouTube. So that’s all ready to lay out, shuffle around and finish piecing.
For my piecing thread, I used 60 wt. Mettler Silk Finish 100% cotton in color #3000, an off-white. I love piecing with 60 weight thread! Because it is so fine, seams press flatter and because there is less thread in the seam, my seam allowances are much more accurate than when I use a standard sewing weight thread.
I also watched a video on a disappearing pinwheel block made with layer cakes, but when I tried to find it again I could only find a completely different block with the same name made out of jelly rolls – not what I wanted at all! So I started going through my issues of BLOCK magazine from Missouri Star and found it in the very first issue that I ever bought. It’s called Disappearing Pinwheel and I really like both the block and the border.
First, I made the pinwheels from two layer cakes sewn together around all the edges. I used Poppy Celebration by Cynthia Coulter for Wilmington for the print layer cake; the solid is Kona cotton solids in Snow. Then you cut the squares into triangles, press, and piece a pinwheel with them.
Then you cut the pinwheel block up, turn all the pieces around and sew them back together into this block! This is really fun!
I’ve set up an assembly line system where I’ve got three or four blocks in various stages. I sew all the parts, stack them up and take them to the ironing board. Then I’ll press, do any cutting necessary, pile them back up on a small cutting mat and take it all to the machine. It’s going pretty quick this way! I’m piecing this one with the same thread manufacturer, type and weight. Only the color is different; it’s #1531, more of a cream color.
I’ve made 11 blocks over the last couple of days in odd moments between email, packing for my next trip and other work stuff, so they go really fast!
xoxo
Paula
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