flowerburst hexie progress

I finished stitching up the last couple seams on this flowerburst hexie block last night. The sides of these blocks are finishing at about four inches. So let's see... if I want a finished queen sized-quilt, that would be roughly 24 blocks long and 22 blocks wide. Which would be a total of 528 blocks. WHAT?! Can that even be possible? Someone check my math and tell me I'm wrong, please.

flowerburst hexie

Nevermind, I just checked it myself and I definitely was wrong. No big surprise there! While the sides may be four inches, the diameter at their widest point is eight. That means 12 blocks long and 11 blocks wide, totaling 132 blocks. That sounds a LOT more doable. Just to be safe, go ahead and check that math for me, would ya? I don't have the best track record in regards to calculating quilt pattern dimensions.

FBH group shot

Here they all are together. I have 15 of them so far. Yikes, this may take a while! It's quite a bit of effort to get those little half-hexies basted and stitched in there, but I'm sticking with it because I think they look pretty cool this way.

leaning tower of hexies

There's no deadline in mind, obviously. I tend to have a hard time with those, have you noticed?! It'll be years, for sure. I think there are about 35 hexie flowers waiting for borders. This project has it's own plastic storage box that is handy for grabbing to take along on car rides, so I'll be bringing it with me this week for all the Fourth of July traveling we have planned :D


Linking up with Jenna over at her Manic Monday linky party!

rockin' weekend recap - it's a doozy

Hey there. It's been busy over here, but I had so much fun in the last few days and thought I'd share some highlights. It all started when I finally got the motivation to put up a rad design wall in the new sewing room.

rad new design wall

You can't hardly tell from the photo, but it's pieced together and covers the whole entire wall. I know, not really necessary, but I had enough material. So why not go overboard?

Stats:
2 30x60in sheets of 1/2 in thick white foam board (which we cut in half at the store so it would fit in the car)
1 king sized 100% polyester batting (cotton batting has an ivory color to it, I wanted white)
3M adhesive strips for hanging

All in all it took an evening and about 30 bucks. I could have simply tacked some batting to the wall like I had before in the dining room, but this looks much better and I deserve the very best :P

project gingham, underway

I was trying to get as much done on my gingham quilt before leaving town for the weekend, but pressing seams open sure is tedious. I had reasons for doing it that way, but now I'm thinking it's a waste of time. Especially with the Project Gingham deadline fast approaching! Someone needs to hurry the heck up, already.

windows down, needle in hand

We then skipped town and headed to my future in-laws' place for the weekend. Did I forget to mention that the boy and I are getting married? Oops. Like I said, lots going on over here. Anyways, I brought along my first ever EPP project, these hexie flowers which I started back in January and am now bordering to make big hexagons.

uh oh, where are you taking me?!

What's super fun about the boy is how spontaneous and awesome he is. There I was, happy to sit and stitch and devour peach cobbler with his mom on the back patio, when suddenly we're headed off to a hillbilly pasture party involving lots of food, beer, live music (the boy and his friend sang folk rock songs, swoon!) loud mouths and laughter. Good times all around.

a mud-splattered Lucy-goose

Of course the dog was loving every moment of this adventure, too. We ended up camping out on a sandbar off the river, complete with tents and fishing poles and Sam Adams. Too much fun, really. But the next day was over a 100 degrees and the AC went out, so not everything was perfect. I did manage to get three blocks finished during stolen moments at the house or in the car. This one is my favorite.

a flower burst hexagon

I've decided to name it a flower burst hexie block, and while I'm sure it's been done before I can't find anyone to credit, so that's what I'm calling it. And if you're on instagram, I'm using #projectflowerbursthexie to tag all my photos so they can be in one place. And if you're doing Project Gingham with us, we're using #projectgingham to keep track of our progress. I also made a Project Gingham Flickr group, too!

I'm linking up with Quilt Story today for Fabric Tuesday. Head over and check out what else is there!

Ok that's it. Phew. Long post. Also my 100th in just over a year. I've come a long way since the very first. Thanks for sticking with me!

hello again

I've been absent for a bit but am guessing no one even noticed, right? Not that I need an excuse to take a blogging hiatus, but I met a boy. He's been eating up all my free time. That's all I'm saying so as not to jinx it. 

 

Progress has been made on my EPP megahexie patchwork curtains. I took and basted a bunch in the car on a recent weekend road-trip. I like to sit and stitch them together on my front porch steps while the cat and dog play in the yard. No power cord required. I loved this post by Clare (who is hosting the piece and love hexathon) because it totally explains the awesomness of hand-sewing in a few photos and a couple sentences. Check it out!

I never showed off the lovely fabric I got through the stale stash swap. I traded with Danny, who took some of my Mendocino and sent these guys in return. What fun we had pulling fabrics and comparing stashes. 

My sewing room hasn't been touched since my best pal moved out of it three weeks ago. I think my first step will be to paint it bright white, then move everything in and organize. Soon. Ish.

rose star block - help!

Surely you're sick of seeing rose star blocks by now, right? Well that's just too bad because I have another one to share and I need your help deciding on a border!

When I first attempted this block I cut templates from a plastic file folder and thought it was oh so clever! I realized they weren't iron-friendly like my teflon hexie templates but managed to make it work a second time by being super careful to press in short spurts so as not to melt them.

This time around, I upped my hexie from 3 to 5 inches and cut the templates out of Manila file folders, which are still stiff enough to use like teflon templates (basting only on the back side) and are able to be ironed.

While I'm super pleased with the rose star itself, my feet got cold once I laid out these grey border pieces. The flower stems in the center hexie are grey, so I thought I'd tie it in as the background. Plus I have several grey prints in my stash and unfortunately no whites or ivories. But the darker green star points get a little lost, don't they?

Here's where I need your help! What should I do?

A) unpick those three darker green points and replace them with lighter green, then continue with the grey background pieces.

B) go get some white prints (maybe a tiny black or grey dot) from the LQS and see if that looks better

C) leave as is and get to sewing it together already

D) your opinion, let me know If you have any better ideas :D

I'm leaning towards option A since I've already got these grey guys basted and ready to go and it wouldn't take long to remove and replace the three dark green guys, but I'd love to get some feedback! I'm setting this aside now and am going out to interact with the world on a Saturday night.

Hexie Fever + Scrap Attack

I can add hexies to my list of newly acquired skills. I'm obsessed with these little guys. Now I have something quilty to play with while I'm traveling. Or lounging on the couch. Or whenever I feel like it, which has been any free moment for over a week now.

I dug into my scrap stash and had a whole stack of these flowers made by the time I saw my bloggy pal Elizabeth's post and realized this would be a perfect project for Rachel's scrap attack thingy. What a happy coincidence :D

I like how the only rules are that you use scraps and finish it my March. This gives me complete creative control which works best for me if there is a deadline, lol. We'll see what happens!