let's go fly a kite

Or sew some, it's whatever.

These are 11" hexagon blocks that I pieced by machine, using one 3.5" hexagon in the center surrounded by a bunch of kites. I'd count but I'm too lazy. Ok, it's 66 kites. I think.

I started making blocks like this a while back, completed three, realized they were a total time-suck and lost interest. (I also wasn't sold on my choice of gray for the background, something wasn't right.)

It was back during Clare's rose star craze (which is totally still going strong) and I thought it would be cool to gigantify them. So I printed as big of hexagons as I could fit on old Manila file folders and cut out a whole bunch of them. Then I switched gears and decided to try machine piecing instead of EPP. Should be faster, right?!

I had to figure out y-seams and they aren't that tricky, just time consuming. And for the amount of them in each one of these blocks, I should have doubled or tripled the size of my kites so it wouldn't take a million years to finish a quilt.

But that's what I get for making things up as I go along. I like this experimental method of quilting, even if it usually leaves me doing things the hard and/or long way. The wrong way, even.

Chain piecing and doing more than one block at a time do seem to speed the process up a bit. Although I had to really focus to keep from mixing things up, which if you know me...

Do you think ahead and follow patterns or just run with an idea and see where it takes you? I guess it's kind of like traveling someplace you've never been before, either with a map and GPS or feeling it out with your own sense of direction. Sometimes it's best to get where you're going as efficiently as possible, other times it's fun to go sight seeing and get lost along the way.

I'm linking up with Heather and Megan for Fabric Tuesday. Turns out Megan just had a baby!! Hop on over and take a look around :D


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flowerburst hexie progress

While out and about over the last week I got four new flowerburst hexie blocks finished. This is an ongoing project I started back in January, when I first fell in love with English paper piecing. I cranked out 50ish flowers to start with and then decided to add borders, which is a much slower process thanks to those little half-hexies.

Ever since then I've had a whole bunch of scraps cut up and ready to piece into more flowers and borders, kept in a cute little sewing kit ready for spontaneous drives and weekend getaways. It's my go-to project when I have nothing else prepared and I want something to sew on when I'm away from home.

Here's the whole batch so far. I usually post process pics to instagram while I'm working on them, although the turquoise on yellow one seemed to slip by undocumented.

This one and the next one I worked on last weekend while visiting Jon's parents. They love to sit out on the back porch and chat, which is the perfect opportunity for me to hand-piece.

I worked on this next one yesterday afternoon while riding in the car. You can see a bit of Lucy's fur over there on the bottom right. She's a total lap dog and a nut for car rides.

Last time I posted about these blocks I was having trouble calculating how many I'd need in order to make a queen size quilt. Helen, from over at Archie the Wonder Dog, suggested using this site, which tells me I'll need 184 full blocks and 14 half blocks, with the final quilt measuring 90x92 inches. So far I have 19 blocks and about 30 flowers...

Based on my progress so far I should have a finished top in roughly 4.5 years. Whoa. Talk about discouraging! Add in how long it would take to hand-quilt and I might just finish this one in time to cover up with at my funeral :P

I'm linking up with Quilt Story for a little Fabric Tuesday linky fun.

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!

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.

happy mail + another hexie project

Elizabeth sent me a big 'ole box of vintage fabric! I wonder what the neighbors thought as I jumped up and down, squealing with glee.

Mail sure is fun when it isn't bills or advertisements. A million times better when it's fabric.

About half the pieces are cheerful ginghams, which she split with me so we can make quilts together this summer [Eeeek!!].

The rest are bed linens, because she found out how much I dig them. I think she should show us her stash, which must be incredible if she was willing to part with all of these lovelies :P

Oh, and I started another EPP hexie project. I've recently reclaimed my sewing room from the best pal (I'll miss ya, bud!) and had plans to cut up some vintage sheets to make megahexie patchwork curtains for the windows in there.

I had my 2.5 inch (each side) templates cut and my fabric pulled, just waiting to be used. Then Clare started a piece and love hexathon and her timing couldn't have been more perfect. I'm in!

I'm ready to do some mad crazy EPP while on vacay at my gram's farm up in Iowa over the weekend. Hope you have a lovely Easter :D

Edit to add: if you'd like to try piecing megahexies by machine, I just found this great video tutorial by Liz of Lady Harvatine. Go check it out!

wordless wednesday

Rural Adventures



I spent the weekend at my parents' house, carrying on with family members I haven't seen in a while. My brother was home from college (he's studying to be an aerospace engineer) and my great aunt and uncle were in town, too. I managed to get this block pieced together on Saturday afternoon whilst enjoying coffee and conversation at the kitchen table, overlooking the scenic views found on the property we so lovingly refer to as "the Ranch."

Isn't it funny how you take your everyday surroundings for granted? Now that I've been away in the city for a couple years, coming out to my parents' place is new and exciting! Here's some pics I posted to Instagram over the weekend:

I figured out that Instagram profiles can be viewed on a computer, so if you'd like to see what I'm up to feel free to check it out here.

Linked up with Fabric Tuesday :D

Happy sewing!

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Rose Star Mini Quilt - Finished

I went ahead and made a mini quilt out of my most recent rose star block, thinking it would look cute on the wall in my sewing room (once I get it back) or on the center of a table in case that never happens.

I echo quilted it, 1/8in from the seam on one side, 1/4in on the other. Why? Because I messed up and didn't notice right away. By the time I figured it out I decided to just keep going and pretend I'd done it that way on purpose (oops, so much for that plan).

I have a scrolly/swirly black and white dot print (by Alexander Henry maybe?) and thought it would look cool as binding. I was right (duh) and I'm super happy with how it turned out.

The back is leftover sheet material that my mom found at a thrift shop. It's 100% cotton and I used most of it for the backing on my punctuation quilt. I just need to put binding on and that one will be finished. I guess I should get on that...

I'd like to give a shout out to my pal, Elizabeth! She wrote a killer sweet post where she linked back to my blog not once, not twice but THREE times, lol! I was über pleased and am stoked she's joined in on the EPP bandwagon. Do yourself a favor and go check out her blog, Occasional Piece.

Okie dokie that's all for now. I'm linking up with:
Megan's {sew} modern Monday
Elizabeth's Little Quilt Monday
Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday

Thanks for stopping by!

My Love Affair with EPP

Since I have no Valentine, (ick! who needs one?) I'm professing my love for English paper piecing instead. It's more like that disgusting, obsessive, quit hanging out with your friends because you've fallen off the face of the planet sort of love, but I'm ok with that. Judge all you want. I'm HAPPY.

hexie flower hexies

I know what you're thinking... Maybe if I put down the needle and thread and ventured out of my living room for a change I might find myself a man. Meh.

The other day I stopped to get an oil change. While the guy behind the counter seemed to be flirting with me, I decided to walk across the parking lot to the LQS and peruse the fat quarters instead of chatting with him while I waited. Once I returned he got back to asking 20 questions, attempting to find out if I was on the market. After telling him I spent nearly all my free time quilting, he straight up inquired if it was because I had no man to tend to. Huh. We laughed because he was spot on and we both knew it.

and another pic to prove this post does in fact belong on a quilty blog

Unfortunately for this guy, he didn't meet my very basic requirements. Since my pool of possible valentines is so incredibly vast (ha) I can afford to be picky. I'll share a few things I need from a man in order for him to have a chance with this fine behind.

- Must be able to fix a sewing machine.
- Must enjoy tolerate holding bolts of fabric so my hands are free to look for more bolts of fabric.

- Must be tall enough to hold up a queen size quilt for photographing without it touching the ground (preferably his footwear would be visible, but let's not get too specific!)
- Must have a mother who owns a long arm and would let me use it anytime I want (bonus points if she has a giant stash for me to pilfer)
- Must know to gift me a bundle of fat quarters on Valentine's day (and any other holiday) rather than flowers or chocolate or diamonds. Ok maybe I'd take diamonds, but you get the idea.
- Must make the mad cash so I can quit my job and be a SAHQ (stay at home quilter) for the rest of my life.

Are my expectations too high? Methinks not.

Oh and thanks for all the feedback on my Star Flower block (in the last post), it's so nice to ask for opinions and get such good ones! I'll be sharing pics of the finished product once the sun shows itself long enough for me to take some.

Liking up with Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday :D

Rose Star block #2 + hexie flower hexies

This is my second attempt at a Rose Star block, you can find a tutorial by Clare here.

After finishing 45 hexie flowers I've decided on how I want to piece them together. I'm adding a border to each one so they finish as hexagons, 7 inches side to side.

After making three I wished I had used two similar colored prints for each background like I had with the flowers. I'm gonna do the rest like this and maybe I'll fix the first three later. Or maybe they'll blend right in and I won't have to!

I'm now realizing the amount of work I have ahead of me but hopefully I won't run out of steam :D

Linked up over at Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday!

Rose Star + Hexie Flowers

Now that I'm way into English paper piecing (EPP), I couldn't resist trying out Clare's Rose Star tutorial. This guy was a bit more complicated than the hexie flowers I've been making.

I learned EPP using plastic templates, so I used a plastic file folder and the paper cutter at work to make templates for this block. I was quite pleased with my ingenuity! They work great, but definitely can't be ironed over...

And here are the latest hexie flowers.

Hexilicious!

Oh yeah!

Here's what I have so far and I like how it's shaping up so, so much.

So much that I expanded my fabric picks and acquired quite ambitious stacks of squares.

I'll keep going until I tucker out on hexies, at which point any leftover cuts will be ready to use for some other project down the road.

Linked up at Sew Many Ways and Quilt Story!