How to Prepare an EPP Quilt for Travel
This week, we waved goodbye to my parents as they headed out on a 6 month road trip around Australia! As you might imagine, my main contribution to the preparations was to make sure my mum had plenty of stitching to do around the campfire each afternoon. Here's how we prepared and packed a whole bunch of English Paper Piecing for her to take!
Stitching that suits
Mum and Dad have done a few long trips in their caravan over the years, so my mum had a clear idea on what would suit her stitching time while traveling. She wanted everything cut out, but not necessarily basted, and she wanted all the colour decisions made beforehand, so she could dive in and stitch, rather than weigh up colour options. Mum and Dad are travelling with her brother and sister in law, so a lot of time will be spent together outside in camping chairs with a side table. Not much room to spread out, and not much attention for making decisions. We decided to prepare an Ice Cream Soda Kit and have a big preparation day.
Choosing colours for a good spread
We chose the large Ice Cream Soda block, rather than the small, because I figured it would be harder for pieces to go missing! I created a colour palette which combined my mum's desire to make something reflective of the colours of the Australian Outback, and also the new Warp and Weft wovens by Alexia Abegg, which made a beautiful base to draw in other prints from stash.
On the prepatation day, we laid out the fabric on the dining table and I picked out 46 basics (prints that read as a single colour) for the centre stars of the 46 blocks. Mum and I then cut out 6 diamonds from each print and laid them (the cut diamonds and the print they came from) aside.
After all the diamonds were cut, we matched them up with prints in the remaining pile, looking for contrast in colour, shade and/or print style. When we found a good match, we set them aside and came back to them at the end and cut 6 kites from each print.
At this point we were all puffed out! So rather than push through, we set another date to finish off the final round of crowns.
Packaging blocks for travel
For the next round, I decided to get out my cream blanket I use for photo backgrounds. The sun shines on my dining table most of the day at this time of year, and everything was looking very yellow! To choose the print for the crowns, I laid out each block, one at a time, and auditioned prints. Once I chose one, I created a little bundle of the three colours, and mum cut out the crowns. Then she checked that she had the right number of fabric and paper pieces in each bundle, and put them in a zip lock bag, one per block.
Time test
Through the week, mum stitched one of the blocks up to get a feel for the timing. We worked out that she would probably finish all the blocks midway through her trip! So then we chose a white on white print for the joining shapes and cut them also, and I started on another quilt for her to sew, just in case!
Quick and easy quilt prep
Because I was now on a time crunch - only a week before leaving day, I decided on an Eden Quilt and my Warm Vintage fabric bundle. Eden is an easy EPP quilt made from a vintage hexagon design, and all the shapes can be cut from 2 1/2" strips. The fabric bundle (available here) was a palette already chosen and cut into 10" wide fat 16ths!
There are all kinds of ways to colour this block, but I decided to follow the lead of the version made for the pattern by Lucy Bath. It's essentially a 3 colour block, but all the petals and diamonds are different prints within the colour group. It makes the quilt kind of shimmer, which I love, and also means I didn't need to make sure I had enough jewels and diamonds in each print to do 77 blocks.
I separated all the prints into colour groups. Then I lined up 4 prints from one colour into a pile, always with any selvedge at the top, and cut each pile into (4) 2 1/2" strips. I worked out how many diamonds and jewels I needed per print (total number of shapes divided by total number of prints), and then I cut 2 of the strips into (6) diamonds, and the remaining 2 into (5) jewels (in most of the fat 16ths, I could only get 3 jewels per strip), and left the scraps for the centre hexagons.
Then the fun began! For each block, I started with the centre hexagon, then chose the jewel colour and laid it out, then completed the block with the diamonds. Then I counted out the right number of paper pieces for the block and put them in a zip lock bag.
Everything in me wanted to keep this little quilt kit I'd made and stitch it myself! It's exactly what I'm in the mood for right now. So I let myself stitch 3 blocks for fun and for photos, and then I packed up the kit and gave it to mum. I'll just have to prepare another quilt for me to stitch soon!
Two quilts stored and ready to go!
Mum has this small cupboard in her caravan set aside for craft. I found her that beautiful gift box at T2 for the birthday she'll have while away, which now holds all the Ice Cream Soda blocks and joining fabric. She's taken the kit box which has the envelopes of leftover shapes in case any pieces are missing, and also holds her glue sticks. Eden Quilt fit into the document box at the top. Behind the Ice Cream Soda box is a bag of knitting (which she prefers to do while they're driving because the road's too bumpy for stitching), and not yet packed in this photo is the cookie tin below of stitching tools. It has little snips, thread, needles, needle threader, thimble, a small Tupperware cup for stray threads, and a letter opener, that used to be my grandmother's, to help remove the papers.
I can't believe all of that fits into this little cupboard, can you?
Make your own travel-ready quilt kit!
I can't wait to see photos of stitched blocks from the amazing West Australian landscape! I'll be sure to share Mum and Dad's travel and quilting progress in my newsletter over the next 6 months! Make sure you get it here!
If you want to prep a quilt for travel, or just for super easy progress, here's the items we used below!
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