Interstellar Suite – Quilt Week Part II

NO, this isn’t about Interstellar or the Interstellar Suite – Movie Soundtrack scored by Hans Zimmer. However, the Danish Symphony’s performance is impressive and Wikipedia says that Interstellar was one of the most pirated movies of 2015…

This is about a finish!
When I visited Paducah, KY for Quilt Week in 2017, my friend Kayla and I visited the National Quilt Museum. We met artists George and Virginia Siciliano, both distinguished quilt artists in their own right, and George was giving demos of his miniature quilt designs! He specializes in log cabin block variations. By variation, I mean twisted log cabin blocks. These were not like any log cabins I had ever seen. Check out his website.

GeorgeSiciliano.com

It was wonderful to meet the United States Marine Veteran, musician, and quilter. He is a wonderful teacher and seems encouraging and supportive to others who want to try their hand at his trade. I was smitten with the colorful designs and chose to purchase his tool and pattern called Interstellar Suite.

The unit has 180 pieces including my borders and binding. I used some gradient dyed fabric, cut into strips with a solid black background.

Tips and Tricks for Miniature Foundation Pieced Assembly:

Pre-cut and organize your strips
80 weight thread (fine)
60/8 Sharp needle (Note: Cannot use most auto-threaders with this size.)
Shorter stitch length – I used 1.8 – 2 mm
1/8″ seam allowances (His tool worked well for this.)
A sharp 45 mm rotary for trimming between pieces
A small wood wallpaper paint roller (mine is about 1.5″ wide)
Patience. It grows slowly, but then finishes beautifully!

When I precut my strips, I cut my lengths slightly longer than the pattern indicated. This may have created more seam allowance bulk, but did not detract from the design. The wood roller was sufficient to press the seams between sewing. I did not use a hot press until the block was completed.

To display the block, I used Soft & Stable as the batting so that it would not get creased or distorted over time. I didn’t think this piecing needed any additional quilting to make it “POP”.

I definitely want to try to do more of these. I may even get adventurous and try to create one without a foundation pattern! I just need to decide which equal side shape I want to start with. Or perhaps, I will make a full size quilt as one big twist.