We took a road trip yesterday and I did some sewing while riding. I haven’t done that in a while. Lately, I’ve been enjoying the scenery, sometimes helping with navigation and driving. Before leaving home today, I grabbed one of my favorite projects to go: English Paper Piecing.
I love this technique. Some of the first quilt making I did was using this method. In Ollie Jane’s Flower Garden, I pieced the hexagons for the background by basting fabric to freezer paper templates. This was a great travel project while visiting with my mother during the years of her life in an assisted living facility, in hospitals while family members were receiving treatment, and later a repeat of the situation with my mother-in-law.
I’ve found other kinds of hand work to be portable, too. I’ve done wool appliqué and the seed stitch while riding, details described here. But for quick preparation for an on-the-move project, EPP can’t be topped. Today I grabbed a mini-charm pack of fabric, some hexagons I had cut from card stock (using my AccuQuilt Go, and a little tin of supplies I keep at the ready. In this box is a pair of scissors, a couple of pins, a needle, a thimble, and thread. I can grab it and go.
Here’s a photo of all I got done in the car…of the 42 fabrics in the collection, I think there are 5 left to be basted. The rest are ready to attach together or to something else.
Once home, I pulled out this bag of templates to make my version of La Passacaglia, a complex EPP project of many shapes. I love the geometry of it all, and began playing with it a while back, especially using some fabric with symmetrical designs to demonstrate possibilities while teaching the technique. It’s all stored where I can pull it out and work on it a while, put it away, and visit again later. Pieces in progress are pictured in the pile. (The orange and blue probably won’t end up in my final quilt, not colors I like…I was just playing with the colors and symmetry of the fabric in this rosette.) I took this to our guild a few months ago, planning to offer the whole caboodle for sale at a bargain. Now I’m glad I rethought it. Who knows when a ready-to-go project will come in handy? When Jim says, “let’s go,” I say “I’m ready. Where?”. But I feel better knowing I have some sewing to take along, even if it just goes for a ride and doesn’t get touched.
I love epp. Currently I have 3 projects on the ready even if for only 15 minutes of stitching time at lunch. I gave up on epp for my La Passacaglia and hand pieced the whole thing. Now I have to decide how to quilt it, by hand or long arm.
Kindred spirits!