Patchwork Ball made of Pentagons

I recently visited another school class showing them some patchwork quilts, and here they also wanted an easy project to try out for themselves, which did not involve the use of sewing machines. So they got to sew balls made of pentagons, using the English Paper Piecing method.

Here is how:

First, make 12 pentagon paper templates of the size you want, but all 12 the same size, of course.

Cut 12 fabric pieces with a comfortable seam allowance, baste around all 12 templates. I find that the basting method I use for hexagons also works well for pentagons, as long as they are not too large.

Sew one pentagon patch to each of the sides of the centre pentagon. Now you can remove the paper template from the patch in the centre.

Sew the sides of the 5 pentagons together. They will form a bowl shape.

Make two such bowls, only leave one seam open on the second bowl.

The open seam will make it easier to turn this bowl inside out while the papers are still in.

If you want to make a bowl instead of a ball, you can do that of course. Just put one bowl inside the other, wrong sides together, line up top edges and sew. Leave the papers in for stability, – you may also consider putting in the bottom paper that was removed earlier.

Better still, if you plan on bowls from the beginning, you can cut your templates from stiff interfacing instead of paper, – then the bowl will be washable.

For a ball, the two bowls must have the right sides together, and you line up the top edges a little differently. The “mountain top” must be right above the “valley”.

Then you sew the sides together so that the “mountain” ends up in the “valley”. It can be a bit fussy to hold the patches in the correct position while sewing,  so you may have to pin them to avoid the “struggle”.

The “mountain” patch has all sides sewn now, so the paper can be removed.

Continue sewing like this along the edges of the two ball halves. As soon as a patch has all its sides sewn, the paper can be removed, making it easier to handle the project.

Sew till there are only two seams left ….

… or if your fingers are small and nimble, – make it so just one seam is open.

The opening will be easier to handle once the papers are gone.

Turn the ball inside out….

….fill the ball with leftover batting pieces, or whatever you want to have inside….

… and then sew the last opening shut.

A pdf file with pentagon templates can be found here.

Eldrid

Quilt Inspiration

Marina and Daryl Lynn at Quilt Inspiration have written an article on Bargello quilts, where some of my quilts are featured.

Go here to read the article:

http://quiltinspiration.blogspot.com/2012/04/fabulous-bargello-quilts-introduction.html

Eldrid

A Weekend of Inspiration

Last weekend was the Annual General Meeting of the Norwegian Quilt Association (Norsk Quilteforbund). It is a few years since the last time I had the opportunity to attend, so I was happy to learn that this years meeting was to be held in Bergen, which is not so very far, and also the communications to our island are very convenient.

In addition to the AGM itself, there were a lot of classes, talks, forums for discussion, quilt competitions and exhibitions, and of course the ever tempting shops:

Since I had not signed up for any classes, I had plenty of time to let the tempations get to me, – and a few fabrics made their way into my suitcase.

I was also able to spend time to study the quilts at the exhibitions.

Saturday was a bit crowded, but on Sunday there was more space and better opportunities for photographing…..

…. although it was not as empty as it may seem from the two photos above.

The prize winners of the competition themed “Ocean” are presented on NQF’s webpages here. I will not show the same quilts in this post, except a detail from the winning quilt in the traditional class:

I really liked the quilting on Marit Lauve’s storm-at-sea blocks.

Magnhild Tautra had made this interesting piece for the competition.

The log cabin blocks were really small, and I loved the small fish and the fish net.

Kari Østengen had made this one called “Rain and Bad Weather”.

You can almost get soaked looking at this.

Another interesting piece was this one by Greta Husebø called “Arctic Ocean”. I spent a long time here studying the various ways she created texture on the quilt.

She has also made the one below:

Lots of interesting details in this one as well:

I guess that since we were in Bergen, a reminder of the local Oleana design would be in order:

This lovely quilt was made by Edna Marie Nylén.

Last time I was in Bergen, in December, I wrote a blog post showing you this:

I was delighted to find it turned into a quilt, made by Margun Vatshelle:

The manhole covers in the streets of Bergen are called “Bekkalokk”, and that is also the title of the quilt.

I loved it.

I was also happy to see the quilt below at the exhibition:

It is one of a series quilts by Kirsti Hovland where she explores how written signs have evolved from the earliest petroglyphs to the modern day computers. The series is an amazing body of work ,and very well executed.

The quilt below hung in a corner somewhat by itself. If I had been in a hurry, I would probably have overlooked it, as it did not “shout” to me with “loud” colours like some of its neighbours did.

And if I had not stopped, I would have missed seeing the exquisite detailed work that Karin Kristiansen put into this wall hanging.

I cannot imagine how many hours this would have taken.

Grete Lund had a couple of entries in the exhibition, and I fell for this one.

It has a pleasing repetitive pattern, and interesting details for when you go nearer.

I also liked Brit Standnes’ quilt below:

The title is “Ocean in the North”

I liked the tonal fabrics she used at the top…

…. and there were lots of details to explore.

The last two quilts I will be showing you here, were made by Bente Klingsheim.

This one is called “Angel”

“Polar Night” was too big to get a straight shot of because of the narrow aisle.

I’ll compensate by showing a few details instead. The colours are a bit off as my camera did not handle the light conditions in this dark corner very well, and the flash made the quilt look too flat.

I loved the mixture of different fabric qualities, – some matte and some very shiny ones.

The above is just a few examples of all the beautiful quilts that were on show. I really enjoyed walking through several times.

When travelling to an event like this, it is fun to be going in a group, or at least with a friend.

However, I am often surprised at how much fun I have when travelling alone. At almost every corner I tend to meet up with someone I know, or who knows me, and we get talking, often remembering the last time we met.

But the most exciting part is to get to know new people, which is bound to happen during the dinner, if not before. Since I am on my own, and each table seats ten, there is a big chance I will be seated with one or more persons I do not know beforehand. And then we get talking, and discovers we have mutual friends or relations, or have common aquaintances in faraway parts of the world, – that’s when the theory of the six degrees of separation is confirmed once more. And of course we all have one big common interest, which is discussed at length, – and usually I, or someone else, will have some new insight before the evening is out.

So it is not only new fabric that come with me when I pack my suitcase to go home….

… but also a lot of inspiration and good memories.

Eldrid

A School Visit

Last week I got a phone call from the local school asking if I would like to visit the 10 and 11 year olds, showing some of my quilts. They had been working on geometrics, and each pupil had been given a paper with a square divided into 9 equal parts to decorate as they liked. We quilters would know this as a nine patch block, – and although such terms were unknown to the children, the term “patchwork” did come to mind when they had glued all their blocks together onto a piece of cardboard. So when searching on the internet for “patchwork”, my website came up, – and after looking around there, they decided they wanted to learn a bit more about patchwork and quilting, and they especially wanted to see the Kameleon Quilts.  Lucky I live so close

So off I went with a suitcase packed full of some of the quilts that still reside in our home. In the hall just outside the classroom, the result of their geometry project hung on the wall.

A very colourful nine patch sampler.

I told them about nine patch blocks and how they were used in quilts, – very often as the first pattern a small girl would learn to make in former times.

Previously, they had also been doing some rangoli patterns:

We agreed that most of these are four patch blocks.

We also had a look at another traditional block; the log cabin block, and then I went on to show how I had used many of these blocks in my quilts, even the Kameleon Quilts.

On the school website there are some photos from this “show and tell”, which also included other quilts than block quilts. The children were very interested and asked lots of questions, and we were having a great time.

After I got home, I studied the photos I took of their projects, especially the nine patch one. There were some unusual and interesting designs in there, so I have taken the liberty of redrawing a few of the blocks in QuiltPro and playing around a bit to see how they would look if worked into a quilt.

This block is not an unusual pattern in itself, but I have not seen it done in a nine patch grid before, – nor have I found a similar nine patch block in the books and block libraries I have looked through. It may exist somewhere, though.

In a quilt with 3 x 3 blocks it would look like this:

Or like this, if every other block is turned  90 degrees:

Now here is another interesting block:

I have tried to use colours that are similar to the original drawing.

Here it is in a 4 x 4 block quilt:

A very pleasing design, I think.

When every other block is mirrored sideways, it looks like this:

Both of the blocks above have some kind of symmetry to them.

The one below, however, has a refreshing lack of symmetry, both in the design and especially in the colouring; – almost every patch has a new colour:

When set into a repeating pattern, like the 4 x 4 block setting below, it makes a beautiful and interesting quilt:

With every other block turned 90 degrees, it will look like this:

If we “zoom out” a bit, we might also get a better overall view of the design:

I would not mind owning a quilt like that

In conclusion, this turned out to be a most interesting and inspiring visit, – not least for me.

Eldrid

Folded Fabric Blocks Bag – Online Class

A new class with the Folded Fabric Blocks Bag is scheduled to start on October 29th. That is tomorrow!

Go to http://www.quiltcampus.net/ to read more about the class, and to sign up. There is still time.

Eldrid

Progress on the Hexagon Flowers

One of my projects for this summer was to join the hexagon flowers to the background pieces and sew them together. This is the kind of sewing I enjoy to do out of doors in good weather, and sometimes in front of the TV.

Well, we had a few fine days, and I sewed and sewed, and got quite carried away, – until the progress suddenly came to a screeching halt caused by a nasty inflammation of the shoulder. Not much one can do about that, except getting some medication and resting the arm; – so there was no more sewing for several weeks. A few books got read, and many crosswords solved, though.

As the shoulder got better, I have tried to sew a bit more, but I am very concious of not going “over board” again, so have limited my hand sewing to the equivalent of one hexagon flower a day. Since I use 1 inch hexagons, and there are 12 seams in one flower, that would be the same as a 12 inch seam. It is not much, and so far my shoulder has been able to handle that. But if the summer has now decided that this is it, – finito, – there will not be much hand sewing till next year anyway.

When starting this quilt, one of my goals was to find out if there was a way to join the flowers without having to fold the hexagon pieces with the paper templates still inside. I want to preserve the paper templates so I can use each one several times, so try to fold only the fabric pieces that have had their paper removed already.

I did find a way to do that, and will post more details on how to later. I made notes while I sewed the first flowers, and also took lots of step by step photos. However, my main computer where most of the material is stored, is in for repairs at the moment (2 weeks by now), and I think I will wait till I get it back before putting the material together. I just hope nothing gets deleted, or I will have to look in several backup storing devices to find everything again.

Till then: one flower a day (or less).

Eldrid

Honoured

Linda at a maidenhair fern has picked her 10 favourite quilts from among the participants of the Bloggers Quilt Festival. My Shirt Quilt was among her ten favourites, and I feel very honoured, especially since there were 631 quilts to choose from.

Thank you very much, Linda.

Eldrid

The Shirt Quilt

I have written about the progress of this quilt in some of my earlier posts. Two days ago I got it back from the longarm quilter, Anne Rønningen at Quiltekammeret, who did a wonderful job of quilting it. Then I rushed to sew on the binding so it would be finished in time for the Bloggers Quilt Festival, which Amy at Amy’s Creative Side is hosting once again.

I put in the last stitches an hour after the sun set yesterday, but since our nights are getting lighter at this time of year, it was still possible to get some fairly decent photos outside at ten pm.

After my father passed away nearly two years ago, my mother wondered what to do with his shirts. She did not want to just throw them out, so I offered to try to make something out of the material.

I came home with a stack of shirts of very different fabric qualities and colours. I went for a simple block design, and one of the goals I set for myself for this quilt, was to use some fabric from every shirt, and that every block should have different colour and fabric combinations. With so many fabrics available, that was not too difficult.

The fabric qualities varied from quite heavy cotton, to polyester blends and silk, and there were also different levels of wear to the fabrics. I still wanted to include the ones that were most worn as those were the ones we all remember the best.

Despite the varieties in fabric thickness and stretch, Anne did a wonderful job with the quilting. She sent me the photo above, which was taken by her while the quilt was still in the quilting frame, and which got me positively dribbling with anticipation.  I was not disappointed when the quilt arrived here shortly after.

This is the fifth time I take part in the Bloggers Quilt Festival.

My previous entries can be seen here:

Spring 2009

Autumn 2009

Spring 2010

Autumn 2010

A very big thank you to Amy for hosting this event yet again

Do not forget to go to Amy’s site and have a look at all the wonderful festival quilts.

Eldrid

Patchwork at the Olympics

The look of the 2014 winter Olympic games in Sochi Russia was revealed a couple of weeks back, and it seems the main theme will be Patchwork, here represented by five colourful panels.

I borrowed the photo above from here.

I am not particularly interested in sports, but obviously, this caught my eye, so I started to search for more photos and information.

Apparently, the patches in the panels are representing a multitude of traditional Russian crafts from all around the country. This site has a list of the crafts that are represented in the panels, each with a short description, but sadly not many photos. On Flikr here, are some more photos from the presentation. I wouldn’t mind having one of these designs on my car, I think

When thinking of Russian crafts, what most often comes to mind, are the matrusjka dolls

… and also other painted and laquered items:

Brooch

Christmas ornaments

The items above are cheap tourist things, but in the Flikr album here, you can see more of the “real” things.

When looking at the patchwork panels in the photo at the top, I noticed the colours and patches in one panel fitted with the next one, – like they were all cut from one long panel.

So I could not resist playing a bit with the photo, putting them all back together again.

Eldrid

It is Hexagon Season again

We have wonderful spring weather just now. The sun is shining, and the south west terrace is out of the wind, so it is possible to sit outside for several hours without catching a cold.

Today I had my lunch outside, and afterwards spent a couple of hours cutting fabrics for the background hexagons for my experiemental flower quilt, which I also showed you in the autumn.

I have found seven different light fabrics, and cut one row from each, across the width of the fabrics. One row yields 16 hexagons, so now I have 112 light hexagon pieces ready for basting.

If the sun is still shining tomorrow (forecast looks good), and if my skin can tolerate more sunshine, I will start basting.

I am enjoying this

Eldrid