Another Edge Finish
After slow stitching with four English paper piecing projects over the last year or so it’s time to start finishing some! A couple of weeks ago you saw the border finish for Prudence so now I’m working on Southern Aurora, another Lilabelle Lane Creations pattern. This project was lots of fun to do with a whole bunch of fussy-cutting and experimenting with new colour combinations for each block.
There were several template shapes included in the kit that I purchased from Troll Brothers Quilt Designs and so many different blocks offered in the pattern, that I didn’t get bored working on this. I do have to admit that there were a couple of templates that were so darn small that I may have made only one or two blocks that included them…I have my limits! If you’d like to see the individual blocks included in past posts click here, here and here.
Once again this quilt top had an uneven edge, but unlike Prudence where I wanted to maintain the jagged edge, I wanted this quilt to have straight edges. The top and bottom edges needed 10 “filler” segments made with half hexies and luckily I had enough of the background fabrics left over that I was able to accomplish that. The sides were then cut even with the half blocks along both side edges. The layout to the right shows what the entire quilt looks like with jagged edges.
As noted in a previous post, I dug into my stash of white (with black) prints and didn’t have enough of any 3 of them to complete the entire background so I got a little creative. I made 2 sets, one slightly lighter in value than the other. The one with the lighter value, made of micro dots, “eyeballs” and a pale stripe, found their way into the centre portion of the quilt top, while the one with the darker value was placed around the perimeter. It’s not really that noticeable until you look more closely at the photo of the completed quilt top. Notice on the photo at the bottom of the page that the stripey fabric from one set met up with the stripey fabric of the second set at the top and bottom of the quilt. It was a happy accident while laying out the quilt on the floor that I noticed this was possible.
Next, a narrow border of one of the background prints was added to the outer edge because I didn’t want the binding touching any of the side half blocks…I wanted them to float in the background just like the whole blocks were. The stripey colourful binding is already prepped and ready for when the actual quilting is complete. As you can see, this EPP thing has me hooked, but I really need to finish up a few projects before I start a new one…it’s sometimes so boring being disciplined!