In a Bind

Well, not me, but the quilts I'm working on for Phoenix Quilts are getting bound.  I've got two done, and one to go.  I haven't taken pictures with binding yet, but here's one of them quilted.

The new pattern I did on this quilt is one that I'm determined to get good at--swirls.

I definitely need more practice, but they turned out quite nicely, I think!

I used a light/medium brown thread that blended really well with the front of the quilt, and shows up well on the back.

 I'm glad that swirls are something I can do--they look so difficult, but it wasn't that bad at all.

My family is leaving to go to California on Saturday, and I've been thinking about a project I could do in the car.  At the last SLMQG meeting we learned the basics of English Paper Piecing.  I've never really had a desire to do any of it, because I usually don't have chunks of time to sit and hand sew when a little guy won't be trying to get my needle away.  With the road trip though, I thought I'd take my own spin on EPP.

I pulled out my copy of Patchwork Puzzle Balls by Jinny Beyer.  I've made three or four balls from patterns in this book and I really like it.  A problem I've had is that the edges of the shapes stretch, and it is hard to keep a consistent 1/4" seam allowance while hand sewing them together.  My spin is that I'm trying it with freezer paper.  The book has templates in the back to trace, so I traced a bunch onto freezer paper.  I'm doing a design called "Aunt Etta's Diamond."  It uses twelve pentagons (using pentagons instead of hexagons is what changes it to a ball shape from flat) so I decided cut into my precious color wheel charms that Kati handed out at my first SLMQG meeting a few months ago.  I'm thinking this dark grey print for the triangles.

I'm looking forward to doing this project.  It's small enough that I won't feel like it will never get finished, but it's a different shape than I've done before, so it's something new.  I'm interested to see how the freezer paper works too.

I'm linking up to Work In Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced today.