Downton dilema resolved

I'm home again from working at the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace, and what a difference a week makes - lights on, heating on, curtains closed. But then candles lit and cosy evenings with lots of lovely fabrics to piece by hand - or machine - maybe Autumn isn't so bad after all.

On my way to the show I called in at the lovely Village Haberdashery shop -http://www.thevillagehaberdashery.co.uk/ , which is a shop I've looked at on line but this was my first chance to visit - it's a small shop but it's full of beautiful fabrics - so I bought just one bundle of fat quarters, which was very restrained. It's  Fly Away by Phyllida Coroneo for Dashwood Studios, and I love the way Kona plains have been added to the bundle - it's a project for the spring - just what project I'm not sure of.

 

 

Now back to Downton - I have decided to make the piecing easy and so have started laying out the fabrics and stitching the triangles together - I cut all my16 fat quarters ( Lady Edith and lady Sybil ) into half hexagons using die 658880 http://www.sizzix.co.uk/product/658880/sizzix-bigz-die-5-half-hex  and started to lay out the 'whirligig' design -

then I added the surrounding colours -



then I separated the shapes out to leave me with 6 triangles to stitch -

I then stitched the triangles together - but left the centre 1/4" unstitched -

this is to enable stitching the other piece in (known as a Y seam) to complete the triangle -

Repeat this until you have stitched all 6 triangles -

After this you just keep adding triangles to complete each whirligig - this is how far I have progressed -

When you have stitched all your triangles you can then join them into rows and then join the rows together - I'll show that next week.
Now the question is will I finish the quilt before the end of the series?

I enjoyed working at the show as always - meeting customers,  seeing new fabrics, new projects and I always think that I'll come away without buying anything - this time I was attracted to 'Flexi-frames'

for closing bags - so there will be some bag projects coming up.

 

Whilst working, on The Cotton Patch  stand  (http://www.cottonpatch.co.uk/ ) I decided to see what size quilt I could make out of a layer cake - so using the Big Shot http://www.sizzix.co.uk/product/657900/sizzix-big-shot-machine-only-powder-blue-teal and
Bigz die 659853 http://www.sizzix.co.uk/product/657622/sizzix-bigz-l-die-triangles-isosceles-right-4-1-2-h-assembled
I only cut the full triangle not the half, and managed cut 6 from each 10" square

 so I now have 252 triangles to make into a quilt for the grandchildren - I'm not sure how big this will be but I'll show you next week.
Until then - enjoy the Autumn colours and keep stitching.
Angela