Remember this blog post from mid-March, when I was contemplating whether or not to make a Cleopatra's Fan quilt? You can catch up here if you missed that one. I decided to make a test block with my AccuQuilt GO! 12" Cleopatra's Fan BOB (Block On Board) die cutter (this post contains affiliate links) and, although this was fiddly and slow-going to piece, I like how it turned out. I was unsure about the large 12" block scale initially, but I really like it paired with large scale print fabrics like this scrap of older OOP (out of print) Kaffe Fassett floral. Isn't this fun?
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| 12 inch Cleopatra's Fan Test Block Completed |
First, my thoughts on cutting the fabric patches out with the AccuQuilt die, because as I explained in my earlier post, there are multiple different options for cutting out this block. Due to the orientation of the fabric shapes on the BOB die, I needed strips of each fabric cut PARALLEL to my selvages, which caused me to mess up and miscut the violet fabric I originally planned to use in place of the green solid. I was on autopilot, selvages together, then selvages to the fold and cut off a slice, but that would have resulted in feeding the slightly stretchy crosswise grain through the die cutter, and my patches from that color would likely have stretched during cutting and come out slightly too small in one direction. Following AccuQuilt's directions about fabric grain really does make a difference, I've found. The other thing I knew I would need to do was to heavily starch that flimsy, filmy Kaffe Fassett print fabric before feeding it through the cutting machine. Even with the grain oriented correctly, that fabric still was unlikely to behave without being starched with old school Niagara Spray Starch Plus. These days I'm more likely to be using for pressing seams as they're sewn and for pressing finished blocks, but nothing beats the real starch like Grandma used when it comes to a slippery fabric that doesn't cooperate.
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| Rear View: The Pressing Plan |
The PDF instructions for assembling the Cleopatra's Fan block don't say anything about how the seams should be pressed. I did my online research and found a few different tutorials, but in addition to reading them I scrutinized the accompanying photos. Lots of people are saying to just press ALL the seams open with this block -- and lots of those tutorials show photos of finished blocks with misaligned seam intersections and wavy stretched fabric edges.
Finally I found Jennifer Strauser's blog post tutorial for AccuQuilt from September of 2021 -- find that here -- and Jenn's piecing and pressing plan is what I decided to try for my first block. It worked really well. Below I've marked up my block diagram to show the direction that I pressed the seams in each row. The pink seam lines were pressed open. |
| Pressing Diagram for Cleopatra's Fan Block |
With this pressing plan, not only do you get nesting opposite seam allowances to help you match up the seam intersections down the center of the quilt block, but the seam allowances on the outer edges of each block will nest with adjacent blocks when it's time to sew these blocks together into a quilt top.
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| No Notches Fall on the Outer Block Edges! |
The biggest challenge for me with this block was distinguishing between very similarly shaped pieces when laying out the block for assembly. See those two that I had mixed up in the photo above? I barely realized my mistake before I started sewing, when I noticed that I had a piece with one of its notches landing on the outside of the block where it wouldn't have anything to match up with.
As for actually piecing the curves in this block, they were easier than the curves in my Jen Kingwell Halo quilt but I did them exactly the same way. Straight stitch plate and #97D Dual Feed 1/4" Patchwork foot on my Bernina 990, and LOTS of pins. My favorite pins for curved piecing by machine are Karen Kay Buckley's Shorter Perfect Pins because they are so thin, like whisker-thin, and I can use as many of them as I need to keep those raw edges of opposite curved shapes aligned without any of the distortion I'd get from using so many regular pins. I'm sewing slowly and, with such fine pins and a slow speed, if my needle comes down on a pin it just deflects instead of breaking or causing damage to my machine.
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| Lots and Lots of Karen Kay Buckley's Shorter Perfect Pins |
...And here we see the loveliness of those notches that AccuQuilt so thoughtfully included in the die-cut shapes! Here's another tip: press very carefully after sewing each seam, pay attention to what you're doing with the iron (down, not back and forth) and do everything in your power to avoid stretching anything during sewing or pressing. This is another reason that starching your fabrics well before even cutting is a big help. When it comes time to join one "slice" of your fan to the adjacent slice, pin the start and end of the seam so the raw edges align precisely, pin the notches, and then fill in with a few pins between notches as needed. If you did accidentally stretch something slightly, here's where you can ease that distortion in and press it right back out after sewing the seam. But that will only work if it's a very slight stretching distortion. Oh, and one more thing to note -- the curved seams themselves are NOT supposed to match up at the raw edges of these seams like 90 degree, perpendicular straight seams would match up. Those seams have to criss-cross at the raw edge of the seam allowance in order to match up just right 1/4" in at your seam line. So follow the notches, not the seams.
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| Use Notches for Matching; Seams Aren't Supposed to Align |
Three spikes assembled, ready to join for half of a Cleopatra's Fan block! Those notches really help the block to go together nicely.
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| "Spikes" Assembled Sequentially, Seams Alternate Directions with Each Row |
...And now two mirror-image half blocks, ready to join down the center seam:
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| Center Block Seam: Notches for Matching AND Seam Intersections Nest! |
I was extremely grateful that I'd found and followed Jenn Strauser's Cleopatra's Fan pressing plan for this block when I got to that last seam down the center of my block and realized that, since I'd pressed the seams of each row in opposite directions, every single one of those seams locked tightly into place for a nice, clean intersection on the front of the finished block. That is not something I was seeing in block tutorials where the author advised pressing all of the seams open in this block. The one intersection that only came out 98% perfect was the one where I'd had a slight misalignment previously and had chosen not to correct it; you may notice that in the photo above. This was my "test block," to see whether I liked this 12" block enough to make a whole quilt full of them. Most likely, if I choose to make enough of these blocks for a quilt, this will be the "worst block" in the quilt. Everything gets faster and easier on repetition.
For pinning straight seams, I prefer my Clover Extra Fine Patchwork Pins that I use 90% of the time. You'll see that I'm still placing pins fairly close together to ensure those raw edges stay perfectly aligned as I'm sewing the entire length of the seam:
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| Lots of Clover Extra Fine Patchwork Pins |
And here is my finished 12" Cleopatra's Fan block (below). Nice and flat, straight edges, no "squaring up" required. A bit tedious and time consuming on the first go but I am surprised by how much I like this oversized, larger scale version of Cleopatra's Fan with my bold, splashy, large scale print fabrics. I am definitely feeling the tropical Florida Art Deco vibe with these fabrics.
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| et Voila! Not Bad For My First Try! 12 inch Finished Block |
If I was making a Cleopatra's Fan quilt from more "traditional" quilting fabrics, smaller scale and/or feedsacks and 1930s reproduction fabrics for an authentic vintage remake of this quilt pattern, I'd prefer smaller scale blocks and would probably cut my pieces out with Inklingo or smaller templates.
Last thought: for me, a Cleopatra's Fan quilt made with 12" blocks would need to be larger than the throw size I'd originally considered. With this giant block size, I just can't get the variety of fabric prints unless I make it a big bed quilt, and I'm not sure I need or want a big Cleopatra's Fan bed quilt. It might be fun for the guest room here in Florida, but that's where I was planning to put my Deco quilt once it's finished. We quilters should all live in mansions with hundreds of guest rooms, with the decoration of each room dictated by which beautiful handmade quilt is on the bed... The mansions would need to be fully staffed like Downton Abbey, though, because cleaning and maintaining the mansion would cut into our quilting time. Hah!
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| 103 x 103 Cleopatra's Fan Quilt |
As you can see in my EQ8 mockup above, a 103" x 103" Cleopatra's Fan quilt would require 61 full blocks, 10 right/left half blocks for the sides, 10 top/bottom half blocks for the top and bottom edges, and 4 quarter blocks for the corners. The partial blocks would be useful opportunities for scraps that I want to use but don't have enough of for a full block, and this block easily lends itself to half blocks on the sides due to the vertical center block seam. However, the blocks for the top, bottom and corners would have to be made whole and trimmed down to get necessary seam allowances. That's a lot of extra work without a huge payoff. I could do something like this instead:
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| 103 x 108 Cleopatra's Fan Quilt |
This would require 61 full blocks and 10 right/left half blocks for the sides, but unpieced setting triangles on the top and bottom plus a 2 1/2" top and bottom border to get a little more length. The white background fabric is not what I'm actually going to use; I like how my test block looks with two prints and a solid and I'll probably use up scraps of coordinating prints and solids for a scrappier look to my finished quilt. Another idea I had was prairie points along the outer edges of the quilt, maybe just on the right and left side, and I could make them more like pointy scallops matching the shape at the tip of the Cleopatra's Fan block.
Anyway, I am recording all of this here now while it's fresh in my mind. I've already packed my test block away along with my handwritten notes, because I don't feel like embarking on the monotony of making 65 more of these blocks right now even if there will be variety in the fabrics. I am still recovering from the boredom of piecing my Deco quilt and I am moving on to my Stonefields sampler next! Check out this earlier blog post from me about this project here.
I read through the first 2 months of instructions in the BOM pattern last night and decided to order the same Japanese made Emma Louise background fabric from Australia last night that the pattern designer used for the original Stonefields quilt, but in a slightly cooler neutral color than hers (I know, I'm ridiculous; I'll explain when it gets here) and I'm switching back to my Scrappy Celebration blocks while I wait for my Stonefields fabric to arrive. If your name is Chris or Gretchen (or even if your name is NOT Chris or Gretchen but you've ever considered making Stonefileds!) you are officially invited to crack open YOUR Stonefields patterns and join me on this adventure! The first blocks are super simple 6" finished Sawtooth Stars. You could totally make those and set them aside, and if you're thinking that you already have too much on your plate to add this project right now, remind yourself how SLOW I am -- you will easily keep up my snail-stuck-in-molasses pace without impacting your progress on other projects. And I will love you forever and we will all be quilting besties into eternity, etc. Wink wink, nudge nudge, the quilty peer pressure is on!
It's Tuesday, To-Do List Day and here are my creative goals for the upcoming week:
- Clean up my studio -- put away leftover fabric from Deco and and the Cleopatra's Fan block, go through the stack of papers next to my computer, and make space for working on the new project
- Unpack the last moving box and figure out how to best organize and store the contents, because it's all of my various supplies for applique and hand stitching that I'm going to want handy for Stonefields! My Karen Kay Buckley Perfect Circle templates, the Applipops templates, paint brushes for starch, that washaway applique foundation paper I wanted to try, etc.
- Cut and piece another set of blocks for Scrappy Celebration before putting that project away again
- Put Marybeth's 1984 sampler quilt back on my long arm frame, sideways, in readiness for quilting the final borders! Notice that my goal is just to get it loaded again; not sure whether I'll actually get back to quilting it this week
MONDAY
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Monday Musings at Songbird Designs
TUESDAY
To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt
WEDNESDAY
Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter
THURSDAY
Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
FRIDAY
Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts
Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre
Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty
TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday
SUNDAY
Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué
Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework
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