Bonjour and Bienvenue au Travelling Pic Stitch Blog Hop

Welcome to my stop on the Travelling Pic Stitch Blog Hop - organised by the lovely Katy and Laura.


These girls had the idea of getting bloggers around the world to piece together some quilting goodness, the colours of which have to be based on a photo they have taken during their travels.

So, what sort of piecing? Why, English Paper Piecing of course. Is there any other? (No really, I'm serious, is there any other??).

This hand sewing technique is the perfect project to take on the road when travelling. If you would like to see a concise explanation of EPP, just look here at Florence of Flossie Teacakes' most excellent write up.

There are many stops on the Blog Hop (which goes until the end of next month) and anyone can join in by creating their own piece and linking up on 30 Nov.

And yes, there are prizes courtesy of some lovely sponsors:

Paper Pieces (whose code PAPER20 will get you 20% off at checkout)
Fabricworm
Pink Castle Fabrics
Marmalade Fabrics
Fat Quarter Shop
Want It Need It Quilt
Aurifil

Good stuff!

Now, here's what I got up to with my first ever EPP attempt.

My photo came from our recent trip to Nice on the French Riviera.

The colours on the right below were pulled from photo by the Playcrafts Palette Builder. Because I'm very fond of turquoise I decided to go heavy on the blue and add just a pop of orange to represent the terracotta roofs of the Vielle Ville (Old City).

I used Kona Solids Cyan, Lagoon and Tangerine plus an off cut of turquoise curtain voile (with light interfacing on the back).

I tried my hand at few different shapes:

And eventually sewed them together to make an abstract geometric pattern.

I've been needing an iPad case for a while so I decided to use the piece to decorate a linen foundation.

I used double sided interfacing to adhere the piece and then reinforced it by stitching around the edges.

I was expecting it to look like a dog's breakfast so I was very pleased with the outcome.

This lasted 14.7 seconds until I realised I'd made a rather tragic mistake:

Flap closes on design. Bugger. 

No going back once you've fused that sucker down, so I had to do some creative cutting to salvage the thing. 

Note to self: double check the placement before fusing. Then check again. 

Anyhoo, I now have an iPad case that can hold an iPad. I consider that a win.

There you have it. I tried EPP for the very first time and not a single swear word was uttered (the moment I discovered my appliqué was upside down doesn't count as technically the EPPing was over by then). I really enjoyed the zen of the process and hope to do some more.

 

And so the show goes on! For the complete list of Blog Hop participants over the two months, see here. 

For some quick links you can see yesterday's stop here at Jo's blog Bearpaw and tomorrow's stop will be at Ramona's blog Ramona Rose. 

I will be back soon with some more pictures from Nice, see you then.