15 May 2019

Red is Neutral in Octagons with Y-seams

For the UandUQAL organised by Sujata Shah I am reproducing the Overlapping Octagons quilt from Roderick Kirakofe's book, "Unconventional and Unexpected". I haven't done much to it over the last few months; this is the present state of this lap quilt.

I have made octagons with red centres, corresponding to the AHIQ red is neutral challenge, and surrounded them by predominantly dark blue strings.  With this choice I aimed to use up most of my blue and red Civil War reproduction fabrics, and with the red I succeeded and have added more modern reds, but the blue were all so dark I soon started introducing flashes of other colours.

At present they're not overlapping, but I have more red squares cut, and here I've positioned them where red squares will go in the final design.

I am pleased that the overlapping octagons have now emerged.

The octagon blocks have Y-seams at each corner, and inserting the second set of red centre blocks will involve more Y-seams. I wasn't happy about this at the beginning, and so tried making hourglass blocks in the corners, as shown here:

This is one of two hourglass blocks I retained, before I gave up on them. At each of  the corners of this hourglass block five fabrics come together making very bulky seams which I couldn't get to lie flat.

Doing Y-seams, however, means joining only three, which will lie much more easily, especially if the last string in the side panel continues into the corner triangle, as here below.

Sorry about the fuzziness!
In this corner above, one of the four string sets ends in a separate triangle; this is one of the string sets I originally joined to an hourglass block. I rejected that method because of the lack of continuity between the string set and its triangular ending as well as the bulkiness of the join.

There was only one thing for it: Y-seams. I dreaded the thought! Now I'm becoming an expert! Practice makes perfect, they say, and I've had a lot of practice! The secret lies in:
  1. starting sewing the seam at the opposite end to the Y-join,
  2. stopping two stitches before the point of the join and backtracking a couple of stitches. That unsewn space gives you some room to manoeuvre.
  3. starting each seam four stitch lengths further than the join, stitching back two stitches to fix the seam and then stitching the seam further until two stitch lengths before the point and backtracking two to fix the seam.
The mistake I made when I first tried Y-seams was to start at the point where everything came together. It's very crowded there! Much easier to keep your distance from everyone else at the party. Approach slowly and stand still when you're close enough. After following a tutorial from Mary Huey on sewing tumbling blocks, it was plain sailing for me! Mary illustrates the process with lots of excellent, clear photos.

I'm not really sure any more if this really fits the challenge "improv", as I'm working from a photo of an early 20th Century quilt; not exactly a pattern, but an example. I am, however, working it out as I go along, which is a characteristic of improv.

If you think I shouldn't post this here, I apologise.

Happy sewing

Marly.

7 comments:

Quiltdivajulie said...

I happen to think you SHOULD post this here and at the Basket of Scraps blog. Thanks for the link on the Y-seams (I dread them, too). Congrats on your progress - mine is stalled.

audrey said...

Working it out as you go along is absolutely what improv. is all about. Kudos to you for learning to do Y-seams! I avoid them every chance I get.:) I think this is the perfect place to post about your quilt, glad to see it here!

Cindy said...

What a most interesting block!!!! I like it!

Robin said...

I love the colors. Y seams can be challenging but it sounds like you've mastered the technique quite well. Great Job!

Shelina (formerly known as Shasta) said...

Those flashes of color are so pretty and I love how they look like overlapping octagons! In my quilt the overlap doesn't show so much because of my color placement of my squares. I am going to add more blocks (which will continue the bad placement probably), but hopefully that will show the octagons.

Kaja said...

I too think you absolutely should post this here. You are working in an improvisational way, working things out as you go along. I've never tried Y seams but your tips are very clear and you have my admiration for mastering the technique. I like your colours a lot; this will be a lovely quilt.

Mary Marcotte said...

I'm with everyone else about learning as a form of improv, especially when figuring it out as you go and trying other ways to get the results you want. You've certainly put some effort into this pretty little quilt. Y-seams tend to scare folks, sort of like curves and circles do. You've proven that it is not only doable, but it also has a couple of options. Thanks for sharing those with us. Love that you showed us a sneak preview of the pieces on your design wall. This quilt is really interesting.