Le Challenge #1 Geometrics

Finally the day has arrived when we show our entries for Le Challenge. This is a new challenge run by Nat from Made In Home and Lucy from Charm About You and the subject of the first challenge was Geometrics.You can use any craft you like in this challenge so no matter whether you are a sewer, quilter, knitter, embroiderer, paper crafter or whatever, why not take a look and possible join in with the next month's challenge.

This is my entry:

It is a table mat made using the paper piecing method if quilting. I had never done this type of piecing before so I headed along to Craftsy and found that This Free Class has a tutorial for the Circle of Flying Geese which I have had my eye on for a long time.

I had a bit of a pre-conceived idea that paper piecing was time consuming and fiddly but Amy Gibson, the tutor quickly dispelled that myth and I loved the technique. It gives such sharp and acccurate piecing lines, although I do think it's a little wasteful of fabric compared to rotary cutting piecing. I loved the technique though, and I know I'm going to using it a lot in the future.

I printed off the downloadable templates and chose my fabrics

I chose to use Klona Solids from Backstitch.  It's a very economical fabric at just £5.80 metre and there is a wide range of colours. This meant I wasn't going to stress if it all went horribly wrong - which I'm pleased to report.... it didn't! I did take the precaution of labelling all the fabrics with the numbered section they were going to be used for, and I'm very glad that I did.

First you unthread your machine and perforate all the sections of the template so they will tear off easily when the block is complete.

Next you sew you fabrics to the underside of the template along the marked lines, progressing from number 1 to number 2 etc until you have completed the block (which is actually one quarter of what you see on the finished table mat)

Once I had completed the block I treated it as a mini quilt and made a quilt sandwich with solid grey Kona on the back and wadding in the middle.

I shadow quilted around the geometric shapes, which helps define them and also produced an eye catching quilted star shape in the middle

I used some organic Happy Drawing Scribbles by Ed Emberley in Grey for the binding. I originally bought it from The Village Haberdashery but I notice that they only have a blue and green version left in stock now.

 

I like the look of the quilting on the back

 

I didn't really know where I was going to use this mat when I started, but at present it stands in pride of place on the coffee table, complete with a little bunch of knitted daffs from my pattern wehich you can find here. I'm so pleased I chose grey for the background. I started off thinking off white or black, but neither of those would have fitted in with the house as well.

 

I'm linking this post with Le Challenge and really looking forward to finding out what the next challenge will be.

Did you notice the new header and cleaner line to my blog? (Well, what else is a gal to do when it starts to rain on a Sunday afternoon when she hoped to spend it gardening?)

 

Till next time..................Julie