Early last year my Instagram feed included a few beautiful Englis Paper Pieced quilts being constructed. They were all from the same incredible pattern, La Passacaglia. I did a little research and found that the source of the pattern was the book Millefiori Quilts by Willyne Hammerstein. The only place I could find to purchase it at that time was from Quiltmania. I ordered it from there and had to wait quite a while for delivery from Europe.
The book sat in my sewing room while I finished other projects and cleared the decks. I drooled over more quilts on Instagram and thought more about starting my own version of the quilt.
In the fall I saw that Paper Pieces has the book and packets of the precut paper shapes for getting started. They also have acrylic templates for cutting the fabric. I ordered the papers and clear templates and got started with the new year.
My fabric choices started with this fabulous Anna Maria Horner coneflower print. Any fabric in the quilt will have to look good with this print.
The clear templates are great for doing the fussy cutting to get each piece of a shape to have the same section of the print. Here you can see that I cut diamonds from this print and will be able to cut the larger hexagons from the space between.
I find the fussy cutting to be more fun than I thought. I love the magic in the symmetry. The same fabric will look different depending on which part is cut and how it is oriented when paired with its neighboring piece. Not all of the pieces will be fussy cut, the pink fabrics in this phot were cut as they would fit from the fabric with no attention to the print.
This is also a fun take along project. Once a few fabric decisions have been made, I cut the fabric and put the parts in a little altoids tin for traveling.
I've been posting more process photos on Instagram as I go so if you're interested you can follow along over there. I'll be sure to post here occasionally too.
I have been following the #lapassacaglia hashtag on Instagram and am amazed at how different all of the quilts look. Everyone is so creative with their fussy cut sections and their fabric choices. Go have a look. I'm SURE you will want to join the fun. Go ahead, you know you want to.
