Mini Mania: Ferris Wheel

After posting a photo of my English Paper Piecing project, Lesley commented and told me about a Flickr group she participates in, Mini Mania Challenge. After seeing the current project, an EPP Ferris Wheel design made by Felice of Sew Scatterbrained, I really wanted to participate too, and got to work.

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the pieces because I'm really bad at using scissors. I know that sounds just a little ridiculous, but I'm a lefty, and if you aren't a lefty, you just can't quite understand. Our scissors are actually different, and it's just a little trickier. Ask a lefty: they'll tell you :-)

So, to make my pieces, I printed out the templates on regular copy paper and measured. Then I used the polygon tool to create the shapes, and before I generated all 100-some-odd pieces, I "assembled" the pattern on the screen to make sure the shapes fit together the way they were supposed to. Once they did, I replicated them out, and got *almost* all the pieces out of one 12x12 sheet of cardstock. I used a textured cardstock because that's what I had, and it was a little thicker than I would have liked, but on the whole, it worked. I used black and red, and realized after I had started piecing that it may not have been a great choice because of the pressing. I worried there would be color transfer during pressing, but there wasn't, thankfully. Next time, I'll use white or a neutral if I can.

And I jumped right in! The tiny pieces were tricky, and the quilt ended up smaller than I would have hoped for, to be honest. If I were to make it again, I'd increase the templates by 50%. But I really love how the colors worked together, and the shapes weren't difficult to piece together. There are some holes in the centers, but I'm not too worried about that, because it's a wall quilt, but I definitely need to improve my skills! It was great practice, though, and I'm really glad I made it.

I'm also pretty pleased with the quilting; I used my walking foot and quilted just inside the hexagons, and I love how it made the colored pieces really pop. The back looks pretty cool, too, in my opinion! (Don't mind my poor binding skills, though...)

I can't wait to see what next month's challenge brings!