Spiral swans

[Syrinx]

I found a lap quilt I started (for me!) a few years ago when I was on holiday. Its an English paper piecing quilt and I took the flying ducks idea and turned it into a big spiral where the "ducks" get bigger and bigger towards the outside of the spiral. I named it my spiral swans quiltkand spent any downtime on the holiday stitching it by hand.
Now I've dug it out I want to finish it so I'm machine sewing it because it got tucked away originally because hand sewing is my least favourite thing in the world

[Lisalou1965]

@Syrinx - that sounds really interesting. Sadly I cannot see the pictures...

[fajita]

No pics there, @Syrinx

[Acorn]

I've tweaked the link, and there are pictures there now.   :thumbsup:

(Oh, and WOW!    )

[fajita]

Looking good so far. 

[Syrinx]

Ooop sorry! I linked on my phone, probably made a bit of a mess there, thanks for fixing it!

A few more strips done, having a wee break now cutting squares and sewing straight lines and flipping them over gets quite dull!

I hope it turns out as good as it appeared in my head

[Syrinx]

Only 8 more strips left!

Then the stressful putting it all together and making blocks to fill the centre. Can't remember the original center plan

[Iminei]

English ?? Paper piecing @Syrinx  not Foundation paper piecing ???

[Syrinx]

Woops! Knew I'd done a typo. It's definitely FPP. Can't stand EPP!

I'm sure I'm going to run out of the green fabric 

[Syrinx]

So. Good news, sad news, bad news.

Sad news first - I've not got enough of the green fabric for 8 big swans (geese) in the outermost part of the spiral.

Bad news - this was the first FPP I designed myself and printed out. Sadly it is on normal paper which was impossible to see through when I started hand sewing it in the dreary dark cottage at the time so I thoughtlessly flipped the paper over. I Have only realised that was what I had done when I finished sewing the last strip that I could. Because it was a good 4/5 years ago I started the silly thing. In doing this I reversed the pattern so that the original "start" swans don't work and are backwards (were supposed to be small into big). Now it's not a huge dilemma as I can just not use that strip of swans there - perhaps pop them in a corner of the quilt, or applique them onto the back or something. It's just a bit of a shame really. Especially as I didn't realise what had happened when I dug it out a couple of days ago - I could very easily have unpicked the 3/4 strips I'd sewn by hand and flipped it all over no problem. But I can't bring myself to do it now it's all done.

Good news - all the other pieces are done. And laid out roughly, it looks like this As you can see the swans are in the wrong direction, but I don't really mind. I may also have enough of the blue fabric to applique all the strips onto so it looks super awesome. Shall check this at another point. If I don't I'm going to have to find a very similar blue batik to applique on. Oh boy do I wish I'd bought more of the fabric at the time!

Main thing is do I hunt out some more of that light marbled green fabric to finish my last big swans? Or do I just stick with what I've got and start the applique process and then contemplate how best to quilt the spiralling madness.

Thoughts anyone? Little demoralised because of not enough green fabric and accidentally flipping the design so it's wrong.

[Acorn]

The swans aren't going the wrong way - they're going the other way.  It looks amazing.

It's worth posting a close up photo on here, and the details if you still have them.  Someone may have just what you need, and not want it themselves.

[Syrinx]

Thanks acorn. I'm glad you like it. I'll get a close up of the fabric just in case. It was a very unusual pick for me, it's just a very plain marbled green. It did teach me than plain texture can be very effective though and I've used many similar over the years.

I'll head back out this morning and see how I'm doing with the blue fabric. I may be able to cut it into chunks and sew together to make the shape of the quilt then the deathly dull applique time. All my sewing kit has been shoved into the annexe and I don't have much table space. Even worse my machine is on a tiny table so sewing big stuff is going to be a massive pain.

I think the backward spiral will be OK, I may just have to reevaluate how I quilt the center - I was going to replicate the triangles into a center point but that won't work. I guess I could fmq an actual Swan in there... Ideas please! The rest will be a mix of curved lines mirroring the spiral and maybe some bubbles inside of those, depends how much space I end up with.

The last piece with rapidly decreasing triangles m think I'll applique on the back as a bit of interest. Maybe have the tiniest swan pointing at my badge and embroidery of who made it and when

[Syrinx]

fabric close up

I've not got enough of the green to finish the last big swans. If anyone does happen to have anything the same knocking about, do let me know!

[Syrinx]

Have enough blue fabric!
laid it out properly just now yay top shot but realised there are 3 strips that don't do the right size progression because the design is backwards. Trying to work out the best way to fix it. May just need a bit more paper and unstitch the wrong bits and add them the other end of the strip. If I can work it out properly, I may not even need to unstitch much!

[wrenkins]

TBH @Syrinx unless you had pointed it out, I wouldn't really have noticed. The overall effect is so dramatic that you don't peer closely looking for mistakes. One is a bit more obvious but I would leave it for a while and see if you can live with it.
I was watching a video yesterday and the presenter said 'if it annoys you three times when you look at it, then change it'. Sounds like a good rule to me. I made place mats a while back and left them sitting out. One error I could live with but the other I definitely couldn't so off it came.