MMSC - Week 25

So, after last week's very successful basting binge, I wasn't sure what I'd get into this week. What I should have done was start stitching together my diamonds for the 6-point star. However, what I did was cut fabric for a new project. (I know, I'm ridiculous.)

These are a selection of prints from a collection called Indigo Patchwork by Connectingthreads.com. I'm working on an arrowtail quilt with 4" 45 degree diamonds. I managed to iron and cut the fabric for 315 diamonds, which is half the quilt.

Maybe next week I'll actually stitch something together. :)

Linking up with Jessica's Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts.

MMSC - Week 22

Remember a few weeks ago, I laid out my hexies for my Batik Hexie Quilt (Grandmother's Flower Garden) and I hated it?

Yea ... I still hate it. It just is not working for me. I thought about it for weeks and every time I looked at the photo the hate rose up. I needed to do something about it, otherwise I had a few hundred hexies and several hundred 3" squares of fabric that would be shoved in the back of a closet.

The Mini Lotus quilt by Jaybird Quilts was recently added to my pinterest page, and I love it. I love the pattern, the colours … I knew this would be something I would try in the future. I started thinking about it more and more. Then it came to me. I can do a variation on it with some of the hexies from my Batik Hexie Quilt.

I knew that I still loved the blue fabric I was using as the background in that quilt. I also loved the purple vines fabric. It took a while to decide on the filler fabric colour, but I went simple and it is working for me.

What do you think?  Lots of blue flowers (88 in total) with a handful of purple flowers (13) with crisp, clean white filler pieces. The litte triangles are actually a white-on-white fabric (cute little stars) and the diamonds are just white kona cotton. This week I managed to baste 6 triangles, 5 diamonds, 5 blue hexies, and 5 purple hexies. Big progress for me! I also cut fabric for 26 more triangles and 85 diamonds. All the hexie fabric is already cut. (Hence my need to find a way to salvage this project. The other hexies have been stashed away for future projects.)

The quilt top will now be smaller than I originally planned, but if I add a 6" border I can make a decent sized throw. I've calculated how many I need of each shape (541 blue hexies, 166 purple hexies, 606 triangles, and 606 diamonds) and I have a lot of basting to do, but I am much happier with how everything goes together.

I've discovered I'm not really drawn to scrappy or multi-fabric quilts (at least not of my own making -- I have, however, seen some amazingly beautiful scrappy quilts out there). I'm not even overly drawn to patterned fabric. I'm a solids kind of girl. I think I need to rethink a lot of my future projects …

Linking up, as usual, with Jessica's Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts.

PS All of my shapes are 1.25" in size. The hexies are an almost perfect size, not too big and not too small. However, those diamonds and triangles are tiny!! The triangles in particular are a challenge to baste since a few Clover clips take up all the space and I can barely find a place to hold it as I'm basting. Challenging, but super cute!

MMSC - Week 17

Thanks for all the support and encouragement last week. It warms my heart!

This week I got no stitching done at all. None, nada, nil, nothing. But that's okay … maybe next week. :)

In lieu of actual progress, I thought I'd share a picture of my design plan for my Batik Hexie Blanket (aka Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt).

I have 2 teal blue batiks, 2 purple batiks, and 2 green batiks, so there will be more variety in the actual quilt than is in my sketch. The white spaces on my design won't actually be white, but will be a navy batik with a flower pattern on it. The majority of the quilt will be the bright royal blue batik hexie flowers that make up the background.

These will eventually be the hexes/fabrics in my quilt:

Just thinking about what it will look like when its finished makes me smile. I'm here for a long time and a good time. :)

Linking up with Jessica for the Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts.

MMSC - Week 10

First off, how is it almost mid-March already? Craziness. Hard to believe we're 10 weeks into the New Year.

I must give the Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts a big shout out … because of the inspiration and motivation I've gained from this link party, I have done almost as much EPPing in 10 weeks as I did the entire 6 months I EPP'd last year. (I only started EPPing in June.) I am more hooked on EPP than ever! (And my lack of cross stitch progress is showing it. Teehee.)

So, on to the real business … progress photos!

Again, I found basting to be therapeutic and relaxing this week and I managed to get 20 hexies done. That's 85 hexies basted since Jan 1 (my New Year's goal was to baste 100 before Dec 31, 2014) and 204 in total.

This weekend I also plucked up the courage and stitched together 3 of the big diamonds in my 6-point star:

Taking out some more of the papers was totally satisfying, I can't wait to do it again.

Finally, I am still being tempted into a new project start by my fabrics … resistance is weakening. (Sorry for the smidgeon of blurriness.)

This post is also linked up to the Hexie Weekend at A Quilting Reader's Garden and the "in hand" epp link party at Splish Splash Stash.

MMSC - Week 8 - Backwards Progress?

Last week I was painfully disappointed in my lacklustre EPP progress. I was determined to get more done this week. I managed to finish off the big diamond I was working on (i.e. added 4 little diamonds). I was quite pleased with that progress, but there were still 5 days before I checked in. I should have worked on my cross stitch or my hexies, but no, I stuck with the diamonds. I added 16 more little diamonds, which really is another whole big diamond!!

I actually finished adding all my little diamonds! WOOT! I still had some time, so I thought, maybe, just maybe, I could get 2 big diamonds stitched together … but that would mean that I had to choose which pattern I liked best.

I laid them all out in the original pattern I'd designed and left them there so I could see it every time I walked by.

The next morning, I switched to the brown star pattern and looked at that for half a day. I sent pics to several friends asking their opinion (which didn't help at all LOL).

I just could not decide! I really liked them both. I couldn't commit and I was wasting days of stitching time.

So I did the only thing a rationale, sane person could do … I cut the fabric for another EPP star.

Guess I'm making a bigger quilt than I thought. It's back to basting next week.

Linking up with Jessica's Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts and also with the Hexie Weekend at A Quilting Reader's Garden.


Side note: While writing this post and looking at the two patterns side-by-side, I decided I liked the brown star pattern best. But I've already cut the fabric for another star … maybe I should come up with yet another pattern … uh oh, I think I'm in trouble.

I love packages in the mail

I do. I really, really do. I LOVE getting packages in the mail. Unfortunately, that usually results in a corresponding dent in my wallet. :(

But I digress … today the sweetest little bundle turned up … a fat eighth bundle of Twirl by Me & My Sister Designs for Moda.

So cute!!! And there's more in there then you'd think - 38 different fabrics!

I don't usually go for these colours (I am not a pink, orange, or yellow kind of girl) but I just fell in love with these fabrics the instant I saw them! It's taken a while to track them down too, since the collection came out a year or so ago. I originally had just wanted a jelly roll, but I like that I ended up with the fat eighths - more versatile.

Now to wait for another package … so I can start planning what to do with these fabrics. :)

A bit of a bender

Some insomnia plus a little extra "me" time means a good amount of progress!

Elizabeth got most of her bodice and more of her bow added:

I love this one more and more now that it actually almost looks like something. She is going to be huge though!

Metamorphosis had two motifs completed and a third started:

This is such a quick, easy stitch. I forgot how fast it can go. The fire colourway looks better than I had hoped - I like it!

A new start was made on my next crochet project - a stripey scarf:

I must admit that I struggled to get this one started (had to chain 432 ... twice!), mostly because I have fairly tight tension in my stitches and the first chain was just too tight to use. On the second try, I moved up two hook sizes to make the foundation chain, then went back to the called-for E hook and it is now going swimmingly! I really, really enjoy working on this. It's super simple as well, using either slip stitches or single crochets. I do appreciate the mindlessness. :P

And the quilting store received another visit from little ol' me (oops):

I just love the Robert Kaufman Fusions Mist fabrics -- great colours, awesome mottling, and subtle print. I keep thinking of things I want to make!

I should never just pop by a store

I recently discovered the blog of a local quilting store, Cornerstone Quilts, and since today was the Christmas in July sale, I popped by just to look around.

I should know better ... I never just "look around" in places like this. I walked out with half a metre of each of these:

I'm thinking of doing a 60 degree diamond hand-pieced wall decoration (or something, I don't know, I'm new at this stuff) for my mom.

And I also picked up some fat quarters so I can do a diamond wall thingy for me too.

Now I just have to convince myself that I don't need any more fabric ...

About that quilting thing

As I said in my last post, I've been convinced to try English paper piecing. It didn't take much really - a gentle suggestion goes a long way with me and crafting. Anyway, a day was spent with my friend Caroline learning to use a rotary cutter for the first time (still have all my fingers!) as I chopped up all my lovely fabric into 3" squares.

I am loving the batiks .... so many delicious swirly patterns!

Once I had a pile (or ten), I was shown how to baste hexagons (so cute), and off I went.

And this is what a box of crafty happiness looks like:

I ended up at the auto mechanic's the other day, and I took my hexies with me. So quick and easy to do and it really helped pass the time. I'm still new and rather slow, but I'm quite happy with 15 hexies basted in an hour. :)

Nothing like a little enhancement

As much as I like to think I have a sense of restraint, I don't. I'm an incredibly impulsive, addictive person. And oooh boy, am I ever addicted to stash.

I picked up my crochet hook again recently, bought a little yarn, and started work on a lapghan. I can't ever be satisfied with just one project on the go -- I always start planning and prepping for the next 3-4 projects too. So now I have decided to make scarves for my Dad and brothers for Christmas, and I have the yarn to do it! I bought several balls of Palette Yarn (fingering weight 100% Peruvian highland wool) from Knitpicks.com.

The intended scarf pattern (from the e-book Scarves for All Seasons by Deja Jetmir):

Colours for Dad:

Colours clockwise from top:
 Hollyberry, Ash, and Black

Colours for Brother 1:

Colours clockwise from top:
Canary, Orange, and Serrano

Colours for Brother 2:

Colours clockwise from top left:
Alphalfa, Bark, Semolina, Macaw, and Almond

I bought some lovely Shimmer Hand Dyed Lace Yarn (70% baby alpaca, 30% silk) for some curlique scarves for my neices and a shawl for my SIL.

Colours clockwise from top left:
Sherry, Shallows, Spice, and Elderberry

I am also on the verge of trying quilting by hand using English paper piecing. Of course I need fabric for that, so I went a bit wild at ConnectingThreads.com. (More on this project next week.)

I do love me some batiks!

The pocketbook has certainly earned a well-deserved (and extended) break. Now I can play with all the pretties!