Tumbling blocks…

The perfect* backing for my white quilt continues to elude me, so I've started two other projects, both of which involve English paper piecing. I've wanted to do some more EPP for a while now as I really enjoyed making the hexagon strip for my white quilt. After all the recent freestyle embroidery, I felt it was time to do something traditional (with a few twists, of course) that requires disciplines such as measuring and planning rather than daydreaming and winging it.

One of the projects is a bolster cushion for our bed (more of which in another post), the other is a wall hanging made with Colourshott cottons. I am hideously late in arriving at the Colourshott party; the excuse for my tardiness is that I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. Being one of life's skeptics, quite simply, I didn't believe the hype (I'm far less curmudgeonly in other areas of life, in fact I'd go as far to say I'm quite trusting and cheerful). After purchasing the sample swatch books however, I can see I was wrong. Colourshott is just as fabulous as everyone claims!

So fabulous in fact that I've shelved my original plan for the wall hanging to be made from indigo dyed fabrics with metallic accents and am going for something much lighter and softer instead, (it was to see if the Colourshott range included a suitably metallic looking fabric that eventually persuaded me to try them). I still like the idea of using indigo dyed fabrics in an EPP project, but I can see now that including them in a wall hanging that also features an optical illusion might have looked a bit too 1970s hippyish–the kind of thing you might hang along side your Dark Side of the Moon poster. As I really would prefer something calming and contemporary, I'm hoping that the slight iridescence of Colourshott will work well with the tumbling blocks pattern and subtly enhance the optical illusion rather than induce dizziness and headaches in anyone looking at the final result.

Like the colours,
but the arrangement still needs work.

Above, is my favourite colour combination so far, it uses fabrics from the Impressions and Italy range of fabrics. I'm having so much fun playing around with options in Photoshop though, that I could easily spend the next 6 months producing slight variations on the same theme, without actually making a decision, let alone getting around to ordering the fabric.

Not so keen on these colours,
besides, the design is off balance.

How it might have looked–
indigos, russet and metallics.

Even when colouring in the designs by hand, with the original indigo scheme in mind, I could still happily while away the hours. All of which tells me this is either going to be the most absorbing project to sew, or, I'm a terrible procrastinator!

Elizabeth,
x.

* Actually, I thought I had found the perfect Liberty Tana Lawn backing, but when I calculated the cost, it worked out at over £100! So, not so perfect after all, this could be a very long wait.