Monday Design Wall

I've finished the 3rd row of my Row by Row Experience wall hanging. This pattern is courtesy of Stitchin' on State:

These adorable sailboats will actually be the top row of the quilt, with another row in between the sailboats and the sunbathers. Here it is with the two rows I finished last week:

I've started the last row, but it's taking me for.ev.er. It's machine pieced with paper foundations. Granted, it gives me nice sharp, accurate points, but it's so fussy with putting the fabric on, flip it over to sew, flip it back over for the next piece, etc. By the way, this last row is from Quilting Connection. It will eventually be a "storm at sea" row with little fish inside. Here is what a fish half-block looks like:

 That small polka-dotted triangle (the fish's tail) is 3/4" by 3/4" by 1". Here's the back:

Here's a pile of my 10 fish:

 Then I had to sew two fish together, swimming in opposite directions:

 Finally, I added four triangles, to set the fish on point:

That's about as far as I've gotten. I still need to make 16 paper-pieced sashing strips and 12 paper-pieced cornerstones. At least each of those only have 5 pieces of fabric, and none as tiny as those fish tails!

In other news, I've gotten 2 blocks made for my pixelated heart quilt, which I'm using as my current leader/ender project:

I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday.

Happy stitching!

Design Wall Monday Update

Hello! Yesterday I promised that I would show you some of what I've been working on lately. You may remember, before my "quilting drought," that I started an EPP hexagon quilt with patriotic fabrics. My goal is to make a large star quilt to donate to Quilts of Valor. I have gotten some work done on that since I last wrote about it. The hexagons are 2" per side, so 4" going straight across. The center measures 28" across:

The first two star points are finished, although they are not actually attached to the center yet:

This has become too large of a project to really take anywhere to stitch on, so this summer, I decided to start another EPP hexagon quilt.

I'm using Kaffe Fassett's delicious fabrics, with his "grape" colored shot cotton for the center. I have one little rosette finished. Eventually I plan on making some stars out of these hexies, so for now, I'm calling this "Hexie Stars". For this project, I'm using 1" hexies. Here are some more hexies, basted and ready to go. I basted these while in the car on the way to my in-laws' farm. Basting doesn't require too much precision stitching, so it's a great way to while away the 5-hour trip.

Shelley at Elsie's Girl had a fabulous suggestion: buy a Fiskars hexagon punch (available in the scrapbooking section of your local craft store) and use it to punch out all those magazine subscription inserts. The inserts are a great weight for EPP papers, and much cheaper than buying the papers pre-cut.

 

Besides these, I've started a new leaders/enders project. (If you're not familiar with leader/enders, here's a description by Bonnie Hunter.) I first fell in love with this pixelated heart quilt a few years ago, and kept it in the back of my mind. Then Sharon brought a pixelated heart quilt which she had made to quilt guild, and I knew I needed to make one soon. So I've been cutting out 2.5 inch squares of low volume/neutral fabrics for the background. I have a few sewn together so far:

Hopefully I'll have this done in time for Valentine's Day, but we'll see!

 

I have actually been working on some other things as well, lately, but the laundry is calling, so I'll have to tell you about those on another day.

 

I'm linking up to Judy at Patchwork Times and Jessica at Life Under Quilts.

 

Happy stitching!