WIP Wednesday: La Passacaglia

I’m not going to lie…this summer has really gotten away from me. I had big intentions to be really productive and so far they have Failed. Capital F. Which, I can’t really say I’m super sorry about. I mean, it is SUMMER-the perfect time to relax and not have a crazy schedule and also to go way too many days in between showering…

But that’s a story for a different day.

What I really wanted to post about was the progress I’ve made on my La Passacaglia quilt. I haven’t posted about the quilt in about a billion years (you can see my other posts on it here and here) and the reason behind that is that I haven’t worked on it in about a billion years. Maybe posting about it will get me back into the English Paper Piecing spirit!

Here’s what I’ve completed so far:

I finished ALL the large rosettes!!! THIS really was a huge accomplishment to me. (I know they don’t look finished-but I swear that’s how they’re supposed to look!). The large rosettes take for.ev.er. Seriously. I mean, take the final row: it consists of 12 stars and 6 diamonds. But really each star consists of 6 different pieces. So really I’m working with 72 different pieces of basting, stitching them into stars, stitching them to the diamonds and then stitching them to rest of the rosette. Anyway, you get the idea, yeah?

Now that I’m looking at the quilt in a bigger picture kind of way, I’m not sure it was the best move to do all the large rosettes at first, but I’ll let you know what I think when I finish. Also, I was really excited about finishing the large rosettes because I’ve figured the project would fly once they were out of the way. Funny thing there is that you actually have to work on it for it to progress in any way…

This stupid coral rosette was almost the death of me. First it got tea spilled on it, so I had to redo it. Then I absolutely hated one of the layers I put on it, so I ended up ripping it out and redoing it again. Honestly, I’m fine with how it (finally) turned out but it’s not my favorite of the large rosettes…which is surprising since coral is my favorite color. Oh well. The above blue rosette is the largest of the small rosettes. See how much more manageable that is??? So easy. And I love that pop of blue.

Here are the small rosettes I’ve done so far. Each small rosette requires a different number of stars and diamonds. It’s been difficult mapping things out and trying to make sure things don’t get too same-y. I still haven’t found the best method for determining colors for the small rosettes surrounding the big rosettes…and some of these might not make it onto the finished product…we’ll see.

I also wanted to share a couple of things that have been game changers for me in speeding up the process/making things easier.

First is this cute Needles case my mom made for me. I seriously LOVE this thing! I work with different needles for different parts of the EPP process so it’s handy to have this keep track of things. Also, ain’t nobody wants stray needles floating around especially when you’ve got a roving baby whose superpower is finding the most miniscule things and promptly inserting said thing into her mouth.

Also, I can’t tell you how much a good needle changed my life in the world of EPP! It makes a HUGE difference. I don’t know if any of you follow the Missouri Star Quilt Company, but a few months ago they made a video of Sue Daley and some of her tips and tricks for English Paper Piecing. There were some useful tips and some really neat products you can buy to make EPP easier-most of which I wanted but were also unnecessary.

But she did mention Milliners needles (also called straw needles)-something I’d never heard of. I didn’t know I’d been using crappy needles until I got my hands on some Milliners. I found the above packages at our local quilting store (aside from this particular store, the only sewing store Flagstaff has is Joann Fabric. I believe they had Milliners needles in stock, but I think they were thicker than I wanted) for about $2 per package. I don’t necessarily endorse this brand, but I do think that if you are doing any EPP it is absolutely worth it to get some Milliners needles. They are inexpensive, you can buy them online and they will change your EPP life!!!

So my La Passa is coming along slowly…but I’ll get my butt back into gear and hopefully I don’t let so much time pass by before my next update!