Fabric of My Life: INDELIBLE Blog Hop party! (tutorial too!)

Remember all these beauties I blogged about a bit ago? (post is HERE)

The beautiful, first fabric collection by my friend Katarina Roccella for Art Gallery Fabric, called INDELIBLE ( I just love the name too!).
I love everything about this collection - the fresh colors, the design, the sentiments it evokes for me... :)

So of course I was delighted to first, help Katarina make the quilt for her booth for spring Market, play with some designs (and play, and play....) and now I am so incredibly honored to participate in this Blog Hop with so many amazing, creative people that I love to follow in blogosphere and that inspire me so much!

You can find the complete list of Blog Hop participants on Katarina's blog HERE.

STAMPED is a beautiful quilt designed by Katarina that I just loved making! This is pattern easy enough for beginners, with nice large blocks that can be set into a quilt in so many different ways. And the best news? - you can find the free pattern for it at the Art Gallery Fabric web site!!!

I really can't decide if I like light or dark color way better in this collection!
Just had to try them both... Made some blocks in dark color way and debated how to lay them out? I love blocks that give you so many layout possibilities!

Choices, choices!!
Well I really liked the deep gold in the centers and since this is a bed runner, I thought the orientation in the top right photo is the best for that.

Now on to thread colors and quilting! Of course amazing Aurifil made an indelible collection of colors to go with these beautiful fabric, aren't they just gorgeous?

I am so getting all of those!!
But at the time I was making this they were not out yet, so I had to go into my existing #Aurifil collection... (oh poor me...LOL!)

Here is how I did - what do you think?

Well that was the easy part, now HOW to quilt this is a whole another story! :) All I can say is - I am still working on that and here is the start:

At first I wasn't sure I liked it... but then I looked at the back and... Not so bad?
What do you think?

I can't wait to finish this! Here is how it will look on the bed:

Back to the sewing machine to finish it!!

I promise to report back soon once it is done!

But I couldn't stop playing with Indelible just yet!

Remember I showed you some of the designs I made in EQ7 with it at the end of blogpost HERE? Well, I made even more...

Meet Indelible Migration table runner!

This table runner is really fun to make, somewhat improvisational and much easier than it really looks!

So - TUTORIAL ANYONE?

This table runner finished at 20"x 54" but both length and width are easily changed by either changing the number of Flying Geese blocks or varying the width of side borders.
For this size, you will need:

1. 1/8 of a yard or fat eight of FOUR different Indelible prints for Flying Geese blocks

2. 1/2 yard of print for border (NOTE: with half yard you will have to piece your long border strip and if you prefer not to piece it, you would need a 1 1/2 yard so that you can cut one long strip along the LENGTH of fabric and you would have a lot of fabric left over (and that is never a bad thing, right? :))

3. 1 yard of white (again you would have to piece the long border strip with just 1/2 yard

1. From four Indelible prints cut FOUR rectangles from EACH print that are:

2. From border print cut THREE 8 1/2" wide strips along the LENGTH of the print (because the direction of the print runs that way), or if you have the whole 1 1/2 yard of the print, cut only ONE 8 1/2" wide strip along the LENGTH of the fabric. NOTE: remove the selvage first from the side of fabric you are cutting. If you wish, you can tear your strips too.

3. from white cut the following:
- TWO 8 1/2" wide strips (border)
- SIXTEEN 5 1/2" X 3 1/2" rectangles
- SIXTEEN 5 1/2" X 2 1/2" rectangles
- SIXTEEN 5 1/2" X 2" rectangles
(all of these are for Flying Geese blocks)

Now on to the block construction!
Blocks that make this table runner are those fun-to-make 3D, One-seam Flying Geese blocks that I showed you in a tutorial a while ago - all details are HERE - but these ones have a little twist!
Instead of using SQUARES of fabric for the Geese background, we will use rectangles! Here are my rectangles ready to use:

So the way of making these blocks will be EXACTLY the same as in that tutorial (link above) but instead of using squares to "sandwich" the flying geese rectangle, we will use these white rectangles and we are making THREE different sizes! because of the "extended" rectangles, the three block sizes will be
10 1/2" x 3 1/2"
10 1/2" x 2 1/2"
10 1/2" x 2"

You will need to make 8 blocks in each size.

So here is how the 3D Flying Geese block will look like with these rectangles - it sort of has "extended" sides of the block, and that will be useful once we go to lay out the blocks - it will give you the ability to stagger the blocks a bit, making it look more like geese in flight - see below!

The only difference here is that this time I tried pressing that one seam OPEN, (rather than to one side) - it seems to be less bulky that way?

Of course, me the chain-piecing junkie - I folded all my geese rectangles, lined them all up and here they are being chain-pieced! That way, it only took about 30 minutes to make all these!

And here are the three piles of blocks in three sizes (8 of each).

Now is the time to play with the block layout!
Take your blocks and divide them in two piles, in each you will need FOUR blocks in each size. Start with one pile first: from bottom up, place first 4 large blocks, then 4 medium ones and then 4 small ones. To achieve that flow of geese in flight, after placing the first large FG block, stagger the next one by moving it about 1/2" to the right, the next one another 1/2" to the right and the next one... After placing all 4 large blocks, go with medium ones but now shift them 1/2" back to the LEFT, and then with small ones go back shifting to the right. Here is how that looks:

The reason I have the long ruler on the right side is to make sure that I don't shift too far, so that when I go to even-out the long edges, I might cut into the geese part of the block - you only want to cut into the white background part!
Here are half of my Flying Geese laid out:

I have to say that having that grid on my ironing board did help a lot in controlling my shift, but if you don't have one, just use the ruler?

Once all were laid out as I liked and checked with the ruler for excess shifting, I joined them together, and then repeated this one more time for the next half of the blocks.
Now on to even out the sides:
- once you have your halves take each one separately (just easier because of the length) and place it on the cutting mat. Line up the ruler like below to even out one side:

Make sure that the out-most point of the geese is 1/4" away from the cut:

and just cut!! (yeah, I know a bit nerve-wrecking... ;) )

Repeat on the other side:

And you have your Geese in flight!!

Join two halves together as a mirror image and you have the center part of the table runner done!

Now lets make some wavy, curvy borders!
Yes, I did say CURVY and yes this does involve cutting some gentle curves free-hand and then sewing them (no pins!), but if you didn't try this before - don't panic! It is really not that hard and I will try to walk you through it. If you did any curve piecing before, this will look familiar.

You will need those 8 1/2" wide strips of white and border print now.
As "final product", you need ONE strip of each, white and print that is 8 1/2" wide and about 54" long. To get that, do the following:
- from white fabric, take those TWO 8 1/2" wide strips you cut and join them together on the SHORT side - you will get one long (~80") strip that you need to cut down to the 54" length. Press the seam open.
- from the PRINT fabric - take those three 8 1/2" wide strips and join them together by the SHORT sides to get one ~54" long strip. Press the seam open.
Here are my two strips:

Now to do the curvy cut:
- place both of those long strips on your cutting board, BOTH RIGHT SIDES UP, ON TOP OF EACH OTHER:

- place them so that you have a maximum length to cut but, unless you have a giant cutting board, you won't be able to lay out the entire strip - but that's OK! Place the strip so that you start cutting from the bottom short side:

- and then, holding your cutter about in the middle of the strip, just start cutting a gentle curve along the length like this:

- now pull both strips towards you, so that you can cut further

-pull apart two sides just so that you can place the blade right where you left off

-and continue cutting till you reach the end

- Once you finished cutting, take the ruler and place it on the TOP short side (where you just finished cutting) and even out the short side. This is a very important step for the piecing to be successful!!

- Now take two fabric strips that are on the left and exchange their place - place fabric that was on the bottom to the top - and you will see how your curve-pieced strip will look like!! Here is one:

-and here is the other:

Now when you take one of these pairs and flip them right sides together, for sewing, this is how it looks - WHAAAT???

But it will be OK! :)
Here is the mantra of curved piecing: Curve edge is nothing but the series of short, STRAIGHT edges!!
So thinking that - take your two strips that are right sides together to the sewing machine, starting from that TOP edge that you evened out with the ruler (important!), match as much as you can - yes, it will be likely less than an inch!!

and start sewing! Once you come to the point where two edges don't match, stop, put the needle down and match further by slightly shifting the top fabric. Sew. Stop with needle down. Match some more. Sew. And repeat and repeat slowly until your curved seam is done! (few photos above...)
I tried to make a short video of me doing it - by holding my phone with one hand and sewing with another, so it is not so good...but it might help, specially if you are doing this for the very first time? I also tried uploading a video to Blogger but it didn't work well (will work on that some more), so try watching it on my Flickr page. Hope it works!

TIP if you are trying this for the first time: for practicing curved cutting, try it on paper first! Just make curvy cut after curvy cut until you have a good feeling about it. For practicing curved piecing - take two strips of some scrap fabric, make cuts and sew those for practice - you can always use them for a fun little project later?

After sewing the curved seams, pressing seam to one side and with nice steam works really well. Here are my two curvy border strips:

Now these are about 8" wide at this point and I did not want borders so wide. But what I did want is to have more of the print fabric in that border than the white - that is the reason I did these 8" wide - so now I folded the strips few times, placed them on my cutting board and placed my 6 1/2" wide ruler on top:

On the right side (print) I just wanted to straighten the long edge and on the left side (white) I cut away some of the white fabric to get final, 6 1/2" wide border strip. Once these were ready, I attached each border strip to my "geese in flight" center and - VOILA!!

So what do you think - wanna try this?? :)
I hope this tutorial is clear and of course if you have any questions or if I can help in any way - just let me know!!

Now on to quilting!! Again, back to my stash of Aurifil 50wt and play of color match! Besides the white, here is what I had:

Hmm... that light blue wasn't the right one, so down to this:

Yes?

Well, I started with white first:

And...after playing and playing, here it is:

Some dark gray and some orange in the borders...

Oh and look what happened by the end - empty spool of white!! YEIKS!! I think I need that beautiful large cone.... :)

And this photo is for you, Katarina Roccella - hand-made mug by another Belgrade artist, on the design of another... :)

I like that these 3D Flying Geese stand of the background - as if they will fly away? :)

Well, I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and my play with this beautiful, inspiring, INDELIBLE fabric collection. I can't wait to see what Katarina designs next!!!

Make sure you hop on to all other blogs to see and be inspired - the whole list is HERE! You can start at Kathleen's blog to see the absolutely amazing quilt she made - just breathtaking!

Big, special THANK YOU goes to Katarina for including me in this amazing Blog Hop - I am so honored to be a part of it!!

Me? - I am off to play some more! Still have some of the beautiful dark colorway Indelible fabric and have to do something.... :) Stay tuned for the update!

Thank you for spending time with me and have a wonderful week ahead!

Marija

#indeliblefabrics #artgalleryfabrics #aurifil #3DFlyingGeese