An Asian Inspired Wall Quilt - Part 3

The Construction Phase

During the design phase, the fabrics for the lanterns were picked out and using the foil wrapped method, paper pieced into hexagon shapes. .

6 hexagons

 Using Clover bias adhesive-backed tape, two rows of three hexagons were placed on a white background.

2 rows of 3 hexagons placed on white background

The next step was to finalize the arrangement.  The rope and lanterns were repositioned and ironed in place.  Something seemed not right, so hangers were added to the lanterns.

Hangers were added to lanterns

This looked much more like Japanese lanterns.  It was now time to sew all the bias strips and hexagons down onto the white background.  All bias taped surfaces were zig-zagged in place.  Look closely at the lanterns and notice the edge stitching with black thread.

All pieces sewn in place

It was now time to add the first set of borders.1 inch black strips were folded in half, sewn to each side of the white square and pressed towards the white fabric.

1st set of vertical borders added

Horizontal borders were added in the same way.

All four borders sewn in place

In Part 4 of this series, the final assembly will be completed, so watch for that segment in the near future!

Cheers!

An Asian Inspired Wall Quilt - Part 1

The Fabric Selection Phase

I've taken the first step in the creation of a quilt inspired by Japanese fabrics, the fabric selection phase.  A long time ago, before the year 2000, I made a Fan Quilt. At that time, I'd sent for a Japanese Fan Quilt kit from a mail order company. It came with numerous little rectangles of Japanese fabrics, and yardages of black fabric and printed fabric for sashing and borders.

Sashing and border fabric

Craftsy's April BOM challenge was to come up with an alternative design for the English paper pieced hexagon shape. So I dug out the fabric kit and laid out a few of the pieces.

Rectangles of Japanese fabrics

These rectangles of fabric are just large enough to accommodate the 2" hexagon template.  Here are the templates I'd made for Craftsy's April BOM.  They're in 2". 1-1/4" and 3/4" hexagon sizes.

Hexagon Templates

I saved the parchment paper pieces I'd made from these templates.

Parchment paper pieces

However, I may not need to use them because I plan to use a unique technique I saw somewhere on someone else's blog to form the hexagons.  I will track down that blog, so that you too can try this technique!

So watch this space for the next phase of this project - Part 2, the Design Phase.