Hexi Return

I'm all done with my hexi rant from the weekend, and am back to making progress.  I connected 2 rows of pink and 2 of green to the left of this section (total of 20 hexies) as well as combining them with their 37 neighbors and the strip of 13 that included the blue.

That connects with the section I finished last year like this.

This may also give perspective of why a quick whip stitch is more important to me that invisible stitches.

The inspiration quilt is an antique from the Michigan Quilt Index.  Unfortunately, I discovered much too late, that the original must have had bigger hexis as this is turning out to be much smaller than was my original plan.   Such is life.

That's it for my Wed WIP update.

But I have a couple days off...Perhaps I'll make progress.

Quilting & Paper Piecing

I am making excellent progress hand-quilting the Double Wedding Ring.  I've been outlining the rings and am starting with a simple echo in the connecting squares.

I'm using a bamboo/cotton batting.  I've used it once before for a machine quilted project, but this is my first hand quilting.  Love it.  I've heard complaints about bearding, but with a #11 needle and coated hand-quilting thread I've had no problems.

We'll just pretend that my stitches on the back are as even as the ones on the front.

Unfortunately, I can't manage a thimble (or any other tool) on the bottom side and still get my stitches tiny, so my left pointer and middle fingers are full of holes.

Subsequently, I needed a different type of project while those fingers are on "injured reserve" so I pulled out the UFO bin with Rita's Hexi quilt.

It was last summer's hand-work project that got de-railed when I read some hexi-snob's post making nasty comments about being able to see the connecting thread on these kinds of quilts.  (As accurately illustrated on the left.)  Fortunately, I don't remember where I read it, but it moved this project from something I found quick and fun, to some weird ideal I should aspire to.

 
I had been doing a traditional whip stitch.

But the expert told me I should do it like this.  I tried that for a day and became so discouraged that I threw everything into the box.

Until today.

Today, I am back to the whip stitch, but using a very thin needle, silk thread, little stitches and being oh-so-careful to catch only a couple threads.

:-p  (*pfffstthhh*)

Take that snobby expert!

WIP on Wed - Aug 17 Hexies

I'm slowly making progress on the hexi quilt.  I am still very pleased with the design (based upon an antique original) but now that I have what is to be the width of the quilt, am quite concerned with it's small size (only 46 inches).  I guess that means some borders and some very challenging color matching. 

As I was hunkered down on the couch Saturday watching cooking shows, I was amused by the assortment of eclectronic gagets that were starting to accumulate around me.  And I was pleased to be sitting on the Joseph's Coat quilt that was left of the couch/futon after a guest had come to visit.

The other accomplishment of the week was back to school registration and shopping for Skater Girl.  We had surprising success finding "chill" clothes at one thrift store.  And I just might have snagged this great piece of retro fabric for my stash.  Don't you just love it???

Wednesday

Last night, after I'd blogged on Love Entwined, I was feeling like I was ready to let that project become an UFO.  I both love and hate the "mystery" aspect and I dread doing the same basic pattern 4 times.

So I pulled out Rita's hexi quilt that I've been ignoring for months.  I replaced 8 hexies that were the wrong color before I lost interest in that as well.

This morning, I decided to get started on the Charley Harper Challenge quilt.  I was pretty enthused about this until I realized that the 64" x64" format I'd planned was going to make those leaves 8" x 13".  And I'd already decided that I was going to make most of the leaves 3-D.  Which means the leaves will have to be quilted before they are added to the quilt.

So I did some color assignments on tissue paper of the 4 variations of green that I bought for the leaves.

I must point out that my frugality makes this project more difficult than it needs to be.  I started by splicing together those odd-shaped pieces of batting to use in the gigantic leaves.

Had I not been so cheap, I could have traced all the leaf shapes onto my light background piece, then layered the light and dark leaf fabrics (right sides together) and the batting...and just stitched away. But as my friends and I used to say in high school "We Super-heroes do everything the hard way."

I made a leaf template from a cereal box and used it to identify where the leaf would be cut out of my random batting scrap.

Then by feeling through the fabric to the cardboard template, I was able to arrange the other 2 fabrics (right sides together) on top of the template & batting and drew the sewing line on the background fabric.

Since I was placing the leaves 1/2" apart from each other, I found it was easiest to trim the batting to 1/4" before I lined up the next random scrap of batting.  I proceeded on this way using up scraps of both the light green background and the batting.

Once they were all sewn, I cut out all 3 layers with a 1/4" seam allowance, trimmed of the tips and snipped the curved edges.  I made a 3" slit in the back of the leaf  (where the center stem line will be), turned them inside out and pressed.

I wanted them to have the same kind of modern vibe as the original, so instead of traditional leaf veining, I sewed co-centric ovals shapes with a line down the center.

Time for me to get back to work....just wanted to post early enough that my UK friends could be impressed with my progress before they headed to bed.

(Editorial note...my cat is more brown than the CH Calico...and the bird is not scheduled to appear on the final quilt.)

This and That

Somehow I managed to stay busy all weekend quilting without really having much to show for it.

I hand pieced a few more of these blocks from the fabric that Nadine sent while watching Saturday morning cooking shows.  I'm up to 16 and will be making 25.

When my fingers got tired from sewing, I cut out a few more hexies from fabric I bought on the Epic Road Trip, and glue basted this stack.

But that got boring, so I drafted more state blocks on the computer.

And hand pieced North Wind for Illinois.

Farmer's Daughter for Nebraska.

( I finally got brave and used a red Pigma pen to write the block name and state on all the finished blocks. )

And Cowboy Star for Wyoming.

(I'm quite proud of the fussy cutting on this one. The fabric says "Ranch Raised"  "Hey Cowboy" "Ropes" and "Boots". )


But then Guitar Girl took over my computer for her on-line class so I decided to move on to another project.

Which involved sewing the back for the Joseph's Coat quilt out of these fabrics.

And pulling the quilt frame out of its hiding place and setting it up.  Unfortunately, I didn't find the directions along with the pieces and parts. Although I managed to get the frame together correctly, I knew at the time that I hadn't put the quilt on the frame quite right...and the solution didn't come to me until I was in the shower the next morning.   I need to swap the location of the back and middle bars, which will be fairly easy to do w/o removing the fabric as long as there are 4 people involved in the process.

Hexi Progress

Since the JC is finally done, I can turn my attention back to other handwork projects.  I added another 84 hexies to Rita's quilt over the past couple days.  This will be the upper right corner of the quilt with green/pink resuming under the blue section.  I may add a little more green to the right side as well.

To see what this may look like when it's done, check out the Antique Inspiration  that's posted on The Quilt Index.

Handwork Holiday

I will be taking a vacation in July, with plans to do hand work while I travel.  I've decided to commit to not using my sewing machine for the whole month of July.

That means packing up some partially finished projects.  Tereece Beesley fans, you are excused until Aug 1.  The bottom right background sections are mostly pieced now.  Having put together 100+ unique pieces for the cartoons, I'm looking forward to how fast the popsicles themselves should go.

And Monet needs a little break so I can get excited about it again.

But I finally get to start on the hexies...which will look a little like this.  This quilt is for my sister-in-law Rita.  I have over 1050 hexes cut out with 126 glue basted and ready to stitch.

Any leftovers will be rolled into a scrapier hex quilt for my niece Hillary.  Hers will be lighter pinks and greens that have a more yellow undertone.  I did discover that one of the fuschia fabrics had a streak of a rather brown shade of burgundy.  Looks like I'll be hosting a hex scrap give-away later in the summer for those blocks.

I have also been working drafting 6" blocks for the USA quilt.  Since I don't have the EQ software, I'm relying on my Power Point graphics skills.  I figured out how to save them as a PDF...next step...figuring out how to load a document onto the blog.   I am planning to sew this quilt by hand, so I could get started this month...but I'm nervous about reds bleeding so I will pre-wash the fabrics in batches before I start.

Update:  I discovered a way to upload PDFs to Scribd.com and add the links through Blogger.  I added the first 8 blocks that I drafted on the side bar.   No particular logic to the order...though I did start with 9 patch blocks figuring they would be easiest.  I will be hand stitching these, with the more detailed ones using English piecing.  I'll post pictures & tutorials when I get started on them.

Safe Quilting

Interestingly, the cold medicine I'm taking fails to warn about cooking under the influence. Fortunately, I only burned one side of the grilled sandwich.  

Faced with that reality check, I thought it was in my best interest to avoid anything sharp or hot during my afternoon of sick leave.  Ruling out irons, rotary cutters, good scissors, pins and needles was a bit of a challenge.  Eventually, I opted for paper scissors and glue.  I still have all my fingers, and a good start on the hexagon quilt I'll be sewing on the Epic Road Trip of 2010.

I finished cutting out about a thousand little hexes that I had printed out on scratch paper. I was somewhat concerned since the only times I've done English Piecing, I've used cardstock and basted the material in place.  I managed to successfully used the gluestick approach and though the paper was flimsier than I'm used to, I think it'll work fine since I don't plan to re-use the papers (hence the scratch paper). 68 glue-basted, 984 to go.