When people hear “EPP” or English paper piecing, many probably envision little hexagons, endearingly called “hexies” pieced together with traditional or reproduction fabrics that may end up looking a little dated. I’m not crazy about that look, but I LOVE Willyne Hammerstein’s book Millefiori Quilts. (And now there’s a second book to follow the first.) In the first book, one quilt pattern in particular caught my eye–the “La Passacaglia”. It combines pentagons, triangles, diamonds, and other shapes to create a myriad of rosettes that are breathtaking. I will say there is a slight drawback if you are using the practice of fussy-cutting (positioning your templates on specific motifs on the fabric to create another design), and that is using fabric yardage inefficiently. But you’ll be making scraps for other projects as you go, so really, it’s a win-win!
Here are a couple of pictures of some of my completed rosettes.
These all show really great examples of using fussy-cutting with your epp. I really can’t wait
to finally finish my quilt top. I have all the pieces sewn together for the standard design by Hammerstein, but didn’t like the fact that I would be chopping several rosettes in half to square up the top. So I opted to fill in the rest of the quilt to be even with the rosettes that stick out…the quilt top is really pretty small when you consider how much time and cutting goes into it.
I laid out my quilt top on a piece of foam board and pinned it so it wouldn’t shift, then used the paper pieces to fill in around the edges. I probably should really look into documenting the layout better than I did, but for now I just have some pictures on my phone. I’ll share those with you once I have completed and know the layout works, so if you want to do the same thing you can!
I started this project in December 2014 and finished Hammerstein’s layout in September 2015. I’m not sure when I’ll finish the fill-in part, but hopefully it’s soon, because I am dying to quilt this thing!
If you’re looking for other pictures of some really awesome La Passacaglia quilts, you should check out the following Instagram users: @kamiemurdock, @lilabellelane, @izy_sewbusy to name just a few. You can also search the hashtag #lapassacaglia for some really inspiring pictures!
[…] relax by doing English Paper Piecing. I started my EPP journey before Gemma was born by sewing up La Passacaglia (pattern by Willyne Hammerstein). I’d pick my fabrics in the morning before I went to work […]