It Finally Got Quilted!!!!

If you have been following along for the past few years you know that I love working with hexagons. My very first hexie project I started back in the spring of 2009, it was the traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt using 1" hexagons. It took 5 long years to hand piece the queen size quilt top. Then it sat, and sat, and sat some more... waiting for me to quilt it. OK just to shed some light on why it has sat so long to be quilted, well... if truth be told after it took so long to piece it I couldn't stand to look at it any longer. Yup I was so mentally DONE with that quilt, LOL. Finally I decided it sat long enough and I just needed to push myself to quilt it, so it could be bound and be out of sight...period :)

 Here is the whole quilt finally quilted...it took 8 hours to quilt!

 

 I used a pantograph called "Jessie's Swirls" and scaled it down so that the quilting was pretty dense.

  

Here is the close up of the quilting. Now that the quilt is FINALLY done! I actually like how it turned out. Will I do another grandmother's flower garden quilt? Not on your life! But will I be doing more hexie quilts? Of course, in fact the 1/2" hexie quilt I started last year (or maybe a little bit before that) is half way done.
 

 

 This is just a couple of the blocks for the 1/2" scrappy hexies, I have 22 of them done out of 36 that I want to have for the quilt. Just looking at them makes me smile...love all the color!

 

  

But a quilt this size requires A LOT of little hexies. Here's a pic of me cutting some more from my stash using the accuquilt go. When it is finished I will let you know how many hexies it took to make this quilt...here's a little hint; thousands!

 

Scrappy Sew Day!

It was such a nice day out today....that I turned off the AC & opened up all the windows and sewed all day!!!!  Don't you just love days like that? No worries, no responsibilities (DH was in the kitchen, cleaning it and making dinner...such a great guy I have).

So this is what I have been working on lately....

 

The top left is a postage stamp quilt that I am making for one of my nieces for Christmas (it could end up as a lap size or  as large as a queen sz. depending on how much I can get done on it). The upper right is the 2013 summer leaders and enders challenge from Bonnie Hunter which is a split 9 patch and will end up as a Christmas gift for another niece (I have a lot of nieces & nephews). The center bottom stack of blocks is for a bare spot on the wall in my quilt studio, hopefully this also will get done before the end of the year ;0)

 

This is my next hexie project that I started, it will be a lap size scrap 1/2" hexie quilt for my office. I say next because I am still working on the king size Grandmothers Flower Garden quilt....yes, I thought it was finished but while it was waiting to be quilted I found myself putting it off and I didn't know why. Then it hit me, the reason for my procrastination on it was because it just wasn't what/where I wanted it to be or look like. So I took it back to the center and now I am reworking the border section of the quilt...already I am happier with the results I am getting. Sometimes you just have to let things be for a while until you get it to where it needs to be.  

  

I have always said "quilter's are the best"! My friend Kay gifted me her scraps! It felt like Christmas :0)

She knew I have been organizing my stash into a more "Scrap Friendly Stash" these past few years. In fact most of my current projects are scrappy!  And she was cleaning out her scraps from her sewing room and thought of me....Thank You so much Kay!

Not everyone likes to work with scraps or make scrap quilts, which is fine- but I love them...each little scrap brings a memory back or puts a smile on my face when I remember the friend that gave it to me. With that said....if anyone out there reading this finds themselves wanting to clean out their scraps but never knew what to do with them or you are thinking of donating them or heaven forbid are thinking of throwing them out....bring them to me & I will find the perfect spot in a future quilt. Also remember no scrap is too small....I keep scraps as thin as 3/4" wide and up. It doesn't matter if you prewash your fabrics or not, or if they are shoved in a bag/bin and are a wrinkled mess, or if they are pieces of old blocks/ test blocks or whatever. I will be more than grateful to take them off your hands :0)

OK so some of you have known that my 17 yr old daughter has been looking  for a job for over a year...and was even thinking of selling baby quilts she was making from my stash either on Etsy or on my website. Well looks like I will be finishing her quilts for her because she finally found a job! She now works at Sprouts Farmers Market a grocery store near by. She is so happy to have steady hours and a weekly paycheck. 

I am hoping to start the new year (2014) with quilts for sale on my website stay tuned! 

Summer Hexie Project Times Two

My kids have been on summer break since May 23, 2013. Almost a month now (wow that time is flying by). My 3 oldest kids are keeping busy with their friends and jobs. But my 13 year old twins were starting to get bored...you know how it is, even though there is lots for them to do like; play outside, go swimming, hang with friends, etc... they still walk around saying  "I'm bored, what can I do?" Then you suggest stuff (such as mentioned above) and they are like; "no, not that". So after several times going back and forth I suggested that they learn how to English paper Piece (EPP) :0) They each selected some fabrics from my stash that they liked and I made up "kits" for them so that they can each make their own 26" sq. pillow.

 

Here's Olivia working on her hexies at my desk (with tongue sticking out as she baste around the hexies). 

And here is Sara up in her room (also with her tongue sticking out as she baste around her hexies). Yup they look totally different with the hair and eyes and such but when they are concentrating on something they are doing both of their tongues stick out...lol

 

So far Olivia has all of her hexies basted and Sara is about 1/3 of the way done with hers. I will post more pics of them and their projects as time goes on. hopefully this will keep them busy the rest of the summer. 

       

Hexie Fever!

4 years ago I started my 1st English Paper Piecing Quilt project. I chose to work with 1" hexagons. Even though I chose the common grandmothers flower garden layout design...I decided to do a large quilt, a king sized bed quilt. When I started it I had no idea what I was doing or how long it was going to take me. At the time I wanted a hand quilt project to do while I recuperated in bed after my surgery. Along my journey I have learned so much and since I started it over 4 years ago. There also seems to be "Hexie Fever" everywhere in the quilt blogging world this year.

 

When I first started there wasn't a lot of info out on the web. I came across a tutorial video over at www.brandysquiltpatterns.com she sells Mylar template hexagon shapes as well as other EPP shapes. She also sold the acrylic window template with a 1/4" seam allowance in order to cut out the Hexie shapes on fabric. When I started I followed her directions. But it seams like my 1/4" seam allowance was getting eaten away by wrapping it around the Mylar template. So I found a website (which the link is in my side bar of this blog) that would generate any size Hexie I needed. Then I printed it off on card stock and painstakingly cut around each little Hexie with my scissors (I made my card stock templates a scant smaller than 1" so I would have more seam allowance using the acrylic window fabric template. This worked ok until you have to start cutting out THOUSANDS of hexies. Also I found that because of hand cutting them out my template shapes were off a little here a little there. So my search continued to find what worked best for me.....

I came across vendors on Etsy, Ebay and the web that sold precut hexagon papers (which I did not want to use-not enough stability for my liking). Some even sold the precut hexies in cardstock! Then I found an  acrylic hexie template that includes a 3/8" seam allowance from www.paperpieces.com  Life was getting easier in the EPP world :0)   

However if you have worked with paper templates or even the cardstock templates they tend to fall apart after using them a few times. I wanted something that would last longer (like the Mylar templates without the hefty price tag for what I had in mind for my quilt studio.

Then this past month I was watching one of Bonnie Hunter's Quilt Cam episodes on her blog and a follower posted her about her hexie quilt she was making. She said she recently found a Hexagon Squeeze Paper Punch made by Fiskars! Boy did my ears perked up...I wanted to know more about this punch, what sizes did it come in, where could I buy one, did it cut template/Mylar plastic or just paper and cardstock? I did a search and found some on Ebay. One vender showed the size of the punched hexie on a 1/4" grid so I knew before buying that the XL hexagon squeeze punch by Fiskars was in deed for the 1" hexies that I use!!!! they also have 2 smaller sizes the Large which produces 3/4" hexies and the Medium which produces 1/2" hexies. Ok so cutting templates that will last in the my size just got easier!!   

A couple of years ago Accuquilt Go came out with a hexagon die in 3 sizes on it (2", 3", 5") these where the size across the widest part of the hexie (and not the side as most hexies are measured by). So with a little playing around I was able to figure out what size hexie template would work best for me (remember I like a generous seam allowance of 3/8"). So the smallest hexie shape that I have labeled 2 in the above pic works best for me using a 5/8" hexie template (1/2" hexie too small while the 3/4" hexie was too big for it). The middle one labeled 3 works perfect for my 1" hexie templates. And finally the last one labeled 5 works best with 2" hexie templates. Yup, I am a happier girl now that cutting templates are easier, cheaper, and faster but also cutting the hexie fabric shapes are easier as well!!!!   

Ok, so if you ever started a EPP and in my case a hexie project to be specific; you would know that it is very addictive. Here I am at the end of my hexie project (from 4 years ago) and what I learned is the following....

1) I love to hand piece

2) I love working with the 1" hexie shape

3) I also love using Bonnie Hunter's scrap user system (do you know where this is heading?, lol)

I started taking my batik scraps/crumbs/squares and turning them into 1" basted hexies....but where to store them? In the above pic I had 3 window tins that I saved from a few Christmas' back which had some bath & body works stuff in them. I figured I could store 4 rows of 1" hexies in each. Allowing me to have 1 row for each color I keep in my stash storage. I started out as a good idea....but hey did I tell you that "I REALLY LIKE THE 1" HEXIES?"  

So it wasn't long before I realized that if this was going to be a permanent part of my scrape user system I needed to come up with a better way of storing them. Yup! Hexie storage drawers! One for each of the 12 colors that I separate my stash in. They fit perfectly under the drawers I store my 1 1/2" strips in.    

 

Here's a top view peeking into my pink hexie drawer. Many shades of pink and all from batik scraps. So far they are only batiks in these drawers but I may add other pink fabrics in as well as time goes by depending on my scrap sizes.