Hexi Star #1 finished

I've finally finished the first star for my Hexi Stars quilt. Well, I actually finished it a few weeks ago, but I'm just now getting a chance to post it!

We had a little plumbing issue, so we had to take almost everything out of my quilting studio for the plumber to get at the plumbing behind the walls in there. Thankfully, there wasn't any water damage! However, everything is piled up on the ping-pong table and the family room floor, so I'm a bit unorganized with the quilting supplies right now. Instead of spending my time working on quilts, I've been taking some time to organize and purge everything. Since the studio is basically cleared out, I do not want to put anything back in there that I don't actually want or need! My husband got the new sheetrock put up this weekend and he is mudding it as I type. Next we need to paint, then I can start moving everything back in.

I'm linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching and Sarah's HeLP for Hexie-aholics (jump over to Sarah's to wish her a happy birthday...she's offering up a little "prize" in honor of her birthday).

Happy stitching!

December stitching

Hello! Since I'm on Winter Break, I decided to jump into blog-land and show you a bit of what I've been working on lately. Although I haven't blogged much, I have been able to spend some time in the studio these past few months.

I've started a new Christmas quilt. I know, I know. I've already got several other Christmas quilts in progress. But you know how it goes: I just couldn't resist this one! And all my other ones are supposed to be Christmas gifts for other people (when I eventually finish them!). This newest one is going to be for me.

It all started when our quilt guild board (I'm the guild secretary) was talking about doing some "block lotteries." We give the parameters for a certain block, and any member who wants to can make a block. You bring the block to the meeting, put your name in a hat, and if you win, you get all of the blocks for that month. When we were talking about making Christmas blocks for our October meeting, our president mentioned a virtual bee quilt she had seen, where the blocks are various sizes. Here is a photo of that particular quilt, from Better off Thread. We decided to have our lottery blocks all be 12" finished blocks. This is the block I made for the block lottery:

I got the directions from Ellison Lane.  After I printed out her template, I realized that my Tri-Recs ruler would make the same size triangles, so I used that instead of her template.

Since I didn't win the blocks from the guild, I decided to make my own Christmas sampler. I'm making the blocks different sizes, but in multiples of 3", so it will eventually fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. I'm also using some of the more modern Christmas colors of red, green, pink, lime green, and turquoise.

Here are the blocks I've made so far. First up is a 12 X 12" improv star, with some of the polka dot fabrics that I adore :

Next is this ornament. After I trim it, it should be a 9 X 9" block. I had seen some similar ornaments, so I pretty much figured up my dimensions. The actual ornament, without the hanger, is a 6" snowball.

 Here's another of the trees inspired by Ellison Lane's tree. This time I kept the tree seams horizontal instead of angled. Since I don't need this to be a 12" block, I kept it rectangular at 9 X 12".

I really like the stack of gifts in Better off Thread's quilt, so I figured up my own measurements for each gift. This will finish at 9 X 15".

What is Christmas without hot cocoa? Here's a mug for the quilt. I found the pattern via Pinterest, that wonderful source of inspiration.You can find the free pattern here. It's a cute quilt that makes 9 different mugs, so I chose one to make. I adjusted the white borders to make this a 12 X 15" block, or I may trim some of that top border to make it a 12" square. I'll see when I get to that spot.

The last block I've made so far is this log cabin house block. It's another one which I can adjust the size down the road, depending on what I need. Right now it's 15 X 15", but it could go down to 12 X 15".

And that's all I've done so far on this Christmas quilt. I'm having fun making a large variety of blocks. Like most of my quilts, I have no deadline for it, but I would love to have it finished by Thanksgiving. Wishful thinking, I know!

I'm linking to Freemotion by the River's linky party.

Happy stitching!

Slow Stitching

Hello, Friends!

Now that the craziness of the first few months are school are over (including Parent-Teacher Conferences this past week), I feel like I can take a deep breath, relax, and check in with my quilty friends!

Although I haven't blogged since August, I have been taking time in the evenings and weekends to do some stitching. Even if I can only find 15 minutes to stitch one seam, I find that hand stitching is so relaxing, and I prefer to keep my hands busy when I'm watching TV ~ otherwise, watching TV seems like a waste of time to me!

I'm almost finished with the first star for my Hexi Stars EPP quilt:

 

Since the star is getting larger, I've been mostly working on it at home. When I'm out and about (or riding in the car), I've been basting hexies for the next star, although I don't have any photos of those yet.

 

I have been so focused on this quilt, I haven't really made any progress on my hexi QOV quilt or my redwork Winter Wonderland quilt. Not that I mind...none of these 3 quilts have any sort of deadline. They are for my pure enjoyment of slow stitching!

 

What slow stitching project(s) have you been working on lately?

 

Happy stitching!

 

I'm linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching and Jessica's Monday Morning Star Count.

Afternoon at the Beach

This week, I finished my "Afternoon at the Beach" flimsy:

That second row, the fish inside the storm at sea, is paper foundation pieced. I thought it was going to take me forever. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the backward-ness of paper piecing! After I finished that row, I decided to add a 1" sashing of the light turquoise between the storm at sea row and the sailboats row (which I see I need to trim up!), to help break up these two rows. I still need to tear out all the little paper pieces from this row, but that can be done as I'm watching tv.

If you're new here, you may not know that all four of these rows are patterns I got at different quilt shops through the Row by Row Experience. I've decided to only make a 4-row wallhanging, so it obviously won't be eligible for a RXR prize.

This quilt makes me smile. First, I love the bright colors and polka dots. Second, it reminds me of when my kiddos were younger, and my friends and I would bring all our kids to the lake for the day. We spent many fun summer days hanging out at the beach. Now that the kids are teenagers and in their early 20s, they'd rather hang out at the beach with their friends but without the moms!

I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall at Patchwork Times.

Happy stitching!

Hexagon Slow Stitching

I've gotten a bit farther on both of my hexie EPP projects. I stitched the first two star points onto this center for my hexie stars quilt (using 1" hexies):

When I started to work on the fourth star point for my QOV quilt (using 2" hexies), I realized that I hadn't basted all of those hexies yet. So first I basted all the hexies I'll need for this star point, then I started stitching them together. All the outer hexies are stitched to the center, and four of the outer hexies are stitched to each other:

I'm linking up to:

Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching

Life Under Quilts

Sarah Did It - HeLP for Hexie-aholics

 

 

Happy stitching!

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!

Slow Stitching

This week, I finished the 3rd point for my QOV star quilt!

I also got a bit further on my hexie stars quilt:

I thought it would be fun to compare the size of one rosette of the hexie stars (1" hexies) with one rosette of the QOV star (2" hexies). Here's how they look side-by-side:

And finally, I worked a bit more on my embroidery for Winter Wonderland. I've started stitching the large snowman:

 

I'm linking up to:

Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching

Life Under Quilts

 

Happy (slow) stitching!