Regent Street Triangles

I know, right? Regent Street Triangles...boring name for a blog post, but I couldn't think of anything else just now. Ive been playing around with the technique of making half square triangles from two Moda charm squares as demonstrated here by Missouri Star Quilt Co. (I've got to say, their tutorials are really good.)

The pros: It's very easy and quick.

The cons: the resulting triangle units all have bias edges and are a tiny bit unstable to sew together later. This isn't that big a deal though.

The pairing of the two 5 inch squares results in four half square triangles which then sew together into a 6 inch square unit so you end up with 42, 6 inch square blocks from two packs of 42, 5 inch squares. I don't understand the maths, but that's just how it is.

You get a really nice sized baby or lap quilt when you sew them all together.

I used the new Moda range Regent Street Lawn and Snow charm squares for my little quilt. And I decided to make Birds in the Air or Robbing Peter to Pay Paul sort of blocks, rather than Pinwheels (with their 8 intersecting central seams.)

I was going to have each block sitting singly on point with setting squares made from this gorgeous vintage cross stitch table cloth.

But when I auditioned it, it seamed too bright for the Snow background fabric.

I also tried out some other configurations of blocks, and whether to set light half/dark half up or down. They all created different effects that I quite liked.

In the end, I liked the triangles all sewn together like little pennants flying in the breeze. I decided to group them in larger blocks of four with similar colour and value, like I did with the Wuthering Heights quilt.

The result is OK. Now I'm up to the border. I tried out the table cloth again, and surprisingly it works quite well... but I'm not sure about it. I feel it would be nice to use it to its advantage in something also a bit more striking, or a bit more of a showcase for it.

We'll see...

In the mean time, Dolly's telling me it's dinner time. So, time to go for now,

Ann ♥

Wuthering Heights Workshop in Maleny

Yes, I know it's been a while, and thanks for all your kind enquiries after me. I'm fine - just a bit snowed under and the blog has had to take bake seat for a while...

I've been SEWING!

I've also been teaching and have just given two lovely workshops, one in Barcaldine (that was a major one and there'll be a separate blog post for that, including photos etc) and the other in Maleny which I'm posting about today.
This workshop was for the Wuthering Heights quilt seen in earlier blog posts and to be featured as a project in August Down Under Quilts. So if you want to make it, the pattern will be there. We had the workshop at Helen's place and she provided a fantastic working environment, sumptuous morning and afternoon teas (as you can see) and excellent company with the addition of her little sausage dog, Rosie, who was definitely a member of the class!
Jo is sitting in front of my quilt, below. She chose to work with a mixture of green and purple hand-dyed fabrics instead of a Jelly Roll, and the results were lovely.

Helen and Mary both used Jelly Rolls for their quilts. Mary tried a variation with the background fabric a and used small print instead of a cream solid. Sue and Lyn both used Jelly Rolls too.

By the end of the first day, we had a few blocks to show for the our efforts and they were all shaping up marvellously! It was a very pleasant day.
The next lesson happened a couple of weeks later, after I'd been to Barcaldine and back. With slightly diminished numbers, the girls all zoomed on with their quilts and managed to organise their quilt top layouts and and sew most of them together.
Here they are pinning Jo's to the design wall.
And here's how the quilt will look when finished. Don't the greens and purples look beautiful. She's making it for a niece's 21st birthday... Lucky girl!Helen used a Jelly Roll from the new Moda range, Awesome by Sandy Gervais, with gorgeous autumn tones and oranges (my favourite colour) and a Kyoto Cloth (bamboo cotton) background the same as I used in the original quilt. Brilliant result.
Sue's was made with a deep, rich Jelly Roll and quite a dark cream background. The quilt's strong shades and deep colours made it quite masculine and dramatic.
I think everyone was satisfied with the results and the workshop went well. Now all they have to do is baste and quilt their quilts and I recommend with this one, NOT to get it commercially quilted with an all-over design, but to persevere and quilt a small diagonal grid across all the squares to keep the integrity of the squares in the design.
Finally, to finish off the day, here's Sues completed Sewing Circle quilt from our BOM group in 2009 - 10. A few of us have finished now, and they're all a bit different. I continue to get orders for this quilt kit and have a whole new set of ladies sewing away at home all over Australia! Lovely!
Well, till next time - and I know there's a whole group of outback ladies eagerly scanning the blog for some photos of their workshop... it's coming girls!

xo xo Ann.