At Last!

At long last, I finally have something to show on this blog.  In fact, I have two somethings.  Isn’t that exciting?!!

OK, not exciting.  But good anyway.  So how about some pictures?

Remember my Hunter’s Star experience – er, design variation?  I posted about it here.  This is how I decided to put the blocks together.  It is the perfect size for a table topper and some nice big spaces for quilting.

I had four blocks left over, so I have the beginnings of a medallion quilt.  I’m letting some ideas bubble around in my head to see what winds up on top.  It may take awhile.

And then, there’s my hexie love:

To refresh your memory, I started with this for the center and blogged about it here.

Several borders were added, some of them taking quite a long time to complete.  Half-inch hexies are really a project in themselves!  This is how far along I was at the beginning of April (see this post).

The last border went on today:

This border is foundation paper pieced and I still have all the papers to remove, but it is essentially done. 

The corners were going to be plain blocks, but I wasn’t really pleased with that.  So after a bit of play in EQ7, I drafted up these.  I like them a lot better.

With this one completed, I can turn my attention (little as that may be!) to the hexie medallion quilt in brown.  I’ve switched up some of the borders on it so it should look completely different.

Although, now that I look at this one, maybe it needs just one more tiny border.  Kind of corral all those spikes.  What do you think?

What Have I Been Doing?

I have been busy every day for the past couple of weeks, but what have I got to show for it?  Not a whole lot!  You’d think I would have some kind of snippets to share.  I have several projects going but they all seem to be going slowly.  What to do, what to do.

Why, start a new project, of course!  I don’t know if my idea will work or not, but if so, it will include some of this:

and some of this:

See that gadget there?  It’s a circle cutter and is it slick!  Once I got a feel for how it works, I was able to cut out sixteen circles in no time at all.  I may need to make a lot of circle projects!

Now I just need to get something done so I’ll have something to blog about!

Time to Catch Up

This blog has been kind of quiet, I know.  It’s not that I haven’t been working on anything.  But what I’m working on is mostly hand work – and sometimes that takes for.ev.er!  Mix in about a week’s worth of head cold/virus/crud/whatever, and there hasn’t been much going on around here.

Today, however, I have some progress to show you.  Everybody say, “Yay!”

So, I told you here how much I love hexies and showed two pieces I was working on.  This is what they look like today.

This is the one that started it all – the Soupcon Quilt-Along from Faeries and Fibers.  There are a couple more borders yet to go on this one.

This is how the second “Soupcon” is looking.  I finished the embroidery today and will have an audition for border fabrics soon.  By the way, the photos are misleading as to size.  The top piece is 24” square, and this one is 18” square.  So, a ways to go on this one.

And since one can never sew too many hexies . . . I started a third project!  This one is from The Hexie Blog and is a block-of-the-month.  This is January, so maybe just a little bit behind! Again, fabric auditions will be held soon for February and March.  Oh yeah – and April.  Jeez, I’d better get cracking!

Of course, none of these three are what I should be working on.  My half finished dolls, the multiple quilt projects, lesson plans for doll club, art journaling – these are all at just about the same place as they were two months ago.

Me?  I am always focused and . . . look!  a squirrel! . . . not easily distracted at all! 

Journal Pages to Share

Back in January, I mentioned joining the Art Journal Caravan (see this post).  This is proving to be a lot of fun, and I am learning a lot.  I’m also spending a lot of time working in my graphics software.  I thought maybe you would like to see some of the pages I’ve created.

These are all from February.  Our “muse” for the month was well-known artists and I really enjoyed studying the artists Manet, Klee, and Picasso – among others.  I’ve forgotten most of the Art History I studied in college, so researching each artist’s work, quotes, and biography was very interesting.  Picasso is still one of my favorites and I tried a portrait of my dog in Picasso’s style . . . or maybe I should call it a PUGcasso!

This month the theme is “Imagination.”  And what fun it is proving to be!  I still have lots of ideas so I may continue this theme into the next one.  Reality can be so boring, so of course the one above is one of my favorite quotes. 

Another one is “Growing old may be mandatory, but growing UP is optional.”

You Know It’s Time To Clean . . .

. . . when the cutting table is too cluttered to cut on!

Ah – that’s better! 

I didn’t really mean to go AWOL for so long.  I just got really busy – as you could probably tell from the first picture!  There are numerous projects in various stages of incompleteness.  But no pictures for some reason! 

I really need to take a few pictures so you can see what I’ve been up to.  Hmmm.  Maybe I should charge the camera battery first!

Thirty-seven Days and Hexie Love

Thirty-seven days - that’s how long I resisted buying fabric!  Kind of sad, isn’t it?  Oh, I have lots of excuses and, in fact, rationale for why this particular purchase shouldn’t count.  You see, the fabric for this year’s Hoffman Challenge is in one of the shops I visit.  I knew I would have to get some eventually, but I usually have to order it and wait for it to arrive in the mail.  But, here it was in person!  Plus, I’m weak!

I’ve been working on an idea for the Challenge, but it will need to simmer for a bit to fine tune the details.

In the meantime . . . .

I have been using some more of my stash.  Not as much as I’ve purchased, but it has the potential!

You see, I love hexies!  I can’t seem to help it.  So when I saw the Soupcon Hexagon Quilt Along at Faeries and Fibres, I had to join in.  After all, it started with hexies AND embroidery.  What more could you ask for?

So here it is after Step four – a center block and three borders.  I’m loving it so far!

I love so much, in fact, that I had to start another one!  I came across this border fabric (in my stash, of course) and I knew it would look great!  Actually, it looks pretty good from the back, too.

I may  need to make another one to capture that circle in the center.  But, I digress . . .

This is the fabric, and I’m thinking it will have to be one of the borders, too.

But first, I will be settling in for a little hand embroidery. 

Stash Revisited

Well, so far I’ve managed to resist buying any fabric . . . so far!  I haven’t used very much, but at least I haven’t added to it!  What I have done, though, is a little organizing.

To refresh your memories, this is before . . .

and here is after.  Every single piece was hauled out of the cupboard, sorted, and folded.  The folded pieces are 1/2 yards and more, while fat quarters and whole pieces less than 1/2 yard are rolled in boxes on the lower shelves.  I really enjoyed reviewing all my fabrics and finding pieces I had completely forgotten about.  A few mystery pieces, too – where did this come from?  What was I thinking!  What in the world can I do with this? – that sort of thing.

And it ONLY took two days!

Oh, yeah.  I should probably stipulate that the sorting was only of quilting cottons.  The bundles and bins on the top shelf have other types of fabric.  Yes, they need to be sorted, too, just not yet.

I still have a pile of usable pieces – not quite quarter yards but “too good” to toss.  So here is what that pile is turning into.

This ought to keep me busy for awhile, huh?  Good thing I have something to keep me occupied, because it’s SNOWING!  AGAIN!  Sigh. 

Nevermind, Spring will be here before we know it . . . just 41 days!