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


Sent from my iPhone

some progress + exciting news :D

My sister thought I needed to post again, so I took some quick pics of things I accomplished recently.

I had been adding the gray borders on each star, but now I think it will be easier to arrange the blocks to my liking if I wait to do that until they're all done. I don't want to risk having two of the same print touch each other, that's the challenge I set forth for this project. The star points can't be pieced in until they are made into half hexagons with the gray, so you'll notice in the picture that they aren't actually sewed on yet.

And I'm slowly adding borders to my hexie flowers, an EPP project. Very slowly! It'll be a long while before this quilt gets finished.

Drumroll please... My best pal and roommate for the last 15 months will be moving out tomorrow. I'll miss him, but am SO ready to get my sewing room back!!!! Whoo hoo!

Ok, that is all for now. Have a great weekend :D

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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WiP Wed - New Block!

This is the second one of these Rose Star/Jazz Hands whatever-you-wanna-call-it blocks. Kris, over at Duke Says Sew What first tipped me off about Clare's Rose Star block party, which I promptly joined in on. I had been hand-piecing like mad already, and after cranking out a few of these my arm was about to fall off.

 



That's when I decided to up the hexie size to 8 inches (point to point) and try machine piecing. I'd never done y-seams by machine but I figured it out. The first block might be more visually striking in photographs, but in real life this one is my favorite. It screams tropical vacation or something like that.

As far as WiPs go, I made one block for my mom's quilt, and started this new quilt, with two block done now. Nothing else got touched!

STATS: 
Completed Projects - 3
New Projects - 1
Ongoing Projects - 7

I also want to mention my pal Elizabeth is having an awesome Superior Thread giveaway, which you can find here. She's awesome and is full of useful quilty info and wisdom. Plus she writes like a dream :D

Linking up with Lee's WIP Wednesday :D

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!

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.

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.