What's Under the Needle?

Week Three of Our Challenge

Posted by on 26 July 2021 | 0 Comments

Tags: challenge

Just in case you missed our first week's of this challenge, you can find them here:

Part One of the Challenge

Part Two of the Challenge

Did you make your line drawing and turn it into a block? Jen played around with some fun fabrics and her window to discover some interesting designs. You can check those our here: Jen's blog post

Last week I selected an area to enlarge to a 4.5" square. I found some really interesting concepts that could be used especially when I twisted the square a little...

But instead of using those, I opted for the flower head itself so that I could 'spread' color around the entire piece. Actually, I'm not sure if I mentioned initially that we will be using your original block as well as this new block in the final piece so balancing out the orange in mine will make it more appealing. 

Technically I didn't make a new line drawing, since I had the pattern there was little point in doing what I've already done before, but I did enlarge the flowerhead to almost double so that it would fill the majority of the 4" - remembering we will lose the extra half inch in seam allowance. I also reversed the design as I wanted the flower to be facing the original when placed at the right of it.... or away if placed at the left. Facing together is visually more acceptable as it draws the viewer's eye into the quilt opposed to off the edge and onto something else!

After that was completed, I drew all the pieces onto fusible and cut roughly around them, then I chose some of the fabrics for the different areas. It always helps to audition these to get a feel for how they might look.

With a decision made, I traced out my pieces and pressed them to the wrong side of my fabrics... and also cut out a 4.5" square for the background ready to start building my block.

Now to press them in place and see how they look!

I won't stitch them this week but instead wait until everything is ready to be stitched together. Maybe you have ideas how you'd like to stitch yours. For me, I like the detail of free-motion raw edge applique.

Rules for Part 3

We're going to use the same line drawing again to make another 4.5" block but this time I want you to make it in greyscale. I hope that doesn't sound tricky! There is an easy way to do this. Take a photo of your block - that's the new one you created and open it in a photo editor. Most people have one on their phone or computer. Look for an option to greyscale your image (it maybe called desaturate) and click that option. Now you can use this to dulpicate your block in tones of grey. It will be fun, give it a try!

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