Lots of TV but still didn't get much done.

I had a lot of time this weekend to do hand work. I had hoped to get the baby quilt I'm working on bound, but I didn't get it quilted ahead of time. This was all I got done. Only the purple part. Better than nothing... right? I like making the flowers for the Grandma's Flower Garden quilt, but I'm not sure that I like doing the white path. We'll see what happens.....

I'm still here! Having three little kids is busy! I haven't gotten a lot of quilting done lately. I've tried a few projects that haven't quite worked out..... I tried to make some baby shoes with pleats similar to the ones from the Michael Miller baby booty contest last year. I am having the hardest time. I have a pattern, but can't get the top to match the bottom in size once the pleats are in. I'll keep working at it and keep you posted. Let me know if you have any special secrets to do this that I'm missing out on. My last post inspired me to start another hexagon quilt. This time I'm making my shapes into diamonds. I figure one jelly roll will make 20 diamonds and that should be enough for a baby quilt for my granddaughter.... that I'm expecting in 20-30 years. I figure that's about when I'll get this project done. It's been fun to work on though. I like to work on projects when each block is different. I think I just like variety! I used hexagons with 1 inch sides.

Hopefully now that school has started and we are in some sort of routine I can post more often... and get a little more finished!

Inspiring

The other day I was looking at my husband's, cousin's, wife's blog (my cousin-in-law?). She is a photographer and we are in need of a new family picture. I was looking at her photos and came across this little gem. Really, I had no idea she quilted.

Are you drooling? I asked Marcene about this beautiful hexagon quilt. She told me that she pieced it while she was expecting her baby. The hexagons are 1 5/8 inches across. She used a Fig and Plum jelly roll. She hand pieced it and worked on it for 5-8 hours a day for about 3 months! Once it was pieced she and her mom hand quilted it. WOW! I am totally impressed. Look at that binding too. It would take forever to sew the binding around doing the mitered corners every inch or so.

Marcene told me that this quilt is now hanging in the Springville Quilt Show in Springville, Utah.

Now I am totally inspired to start another hexagon quilt in addition to the one I've already started.... I'm thinking I'll use my jelly roll of Mill House Inn. I seriously doubt I'll be done in 3 months though.

Thanks for sharing your quilt with is Marcene!

The Great Hexagon Quilt Along 2

To your right you will notice a new button. Yes, I joined the Great Hexagon Quilt-Along 2. The last few months I've been addicted to making hexagons. I found The Great Hexagon Quilt Along blog a few months back and love to get inspiration. I have like a million hand pieced projects in my head now.

This blog was started to be a sister blog to the first since more people wanted to be a part of it than blogger allows. Check out both great blogs for some hand pieced, easy to take with you inspiration!

Innocent?????

I've been working quite a bit on my small GFG quilt. It's quite fun actually. I have a few more flowers finished, but haven't added them yet. I had a little problem last week.
See this kid? Do you think he looks innocent? Um... I'm here to tell you he's not! This is what he did in about 10 seconds alone with my hand pieced quilt.
Yes, as I got up to get a drink he grabbed my scissors and hacked away. He got this hexagon and a corner off the one next to it. Sometimes I have to remember all those times when I didn't have a baby but wanted one more than anything. I try to think about this before I get mad. It helps. I know, I know.... I shouldn't have left him alone with the scissors even though I was in the same room and he was busily driving a truck when I got up. I won't be making that mistake again.

The biggest problem is that I used my scraps. I don't have any more of this fabric and I don't remember what line this is from. If any of you have any ideas please let me know! I will order it online if I can find some. I'd rather just unpick off those two hexagons than the whole flower. The fabric is at least a year or more old.

I haven't done much sewing in the last week. Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things!

What is it About Hexagons?

I'm beginning to become obsessed. My goal at the beginning of the year was to make at least one block, hand pieced of Grandmother's Flower Garden.I did it and am still going. This one has 1 1/2 inch sides.

I'm making either a hand pieced baby quilt or table runner (we'll see when I decide I'm done). The problem? I don't think I can bring myself to hand quilt it. I tried hand quilting once. I ended up unpicking it and machine quilting the project.

Yesterday I made my first machine pieced flower.

I plan to do another layer of petals, but I haven't decided what color to do yet. I may need some new fabric since most of my 30's is scraps now. I want to make at least a throw size, but hopefully a bed size. I figure this may be one of those quilts that takes awhile. It was so fast to machine stitch. Makes me wonder why I've been avoiding it all these years. It took me about 20 minutes to do this much. By hand it took me two hours do do this much. I can't wait to make more!

I think I've showed this quilt before. It's from quilts, Quilts, QUILTS (but the first edition)it says it was made between 1930-1940 with an unknown maker. Wouldn't her posterity love to have this quilt? I love this arrangement of the hexagons. The ones used in this quilt measure 1/2 inch! It doesn't say how big it is and I'm too lazy to figure it out, but I would like to know!

What I'm working on

It's been awhile. Over a week, in fact. My excuse? No batteries in the camera. I know that shouldn't really count, but I haven't made a ton of progress. I am wanting to start new stuff, but I know I need to finish the other projects first. I'm feeling a little scatterbrained in the quilt department lately.

I got this pattern for Christmas. It uses a layer cake and I am using Fig and Plum from Fig Tree Quilts. I really wanted to try just one block. I only cut enough fabric for one and put it together. Now I can work on other things and not feel quite as antsy to get started on this one done. As I've mentioned before, I'm quite baby hungry. Still no word on a baby, but I really want one. A few years ago before my 2 year old was born, I saw this pattern in a magazine. I bought all the stuff and then my next baby was a boy. I decided to get this out and work on it a little this summer, then we moved and it got put away. I'm trying to finish it now. The lady bugs are taking quite awhile to applique. I'm just doing it on my machine, but I am not very good at it, especially the little ones. I also finished the top of Jake's football quilt. I've been working on my grandmother's flower garden. I've decided it's gong to be a baby quilt, or possibly a table runner, depending on when I get tired of it. Last night I did the white hexagons. It took over two hours and most of them don't have the sides sewn yet. My quilt group exchanged blocks again. It's always interesting to see what fabric people used. I was so sure I was using the right color blue. Um..... mine is the only one that color. Sorry guys! Here is every one's blocks. Now.... what to do with them?

Merry-Go-Round Finished!!!!

Here it is.... my finished Merry Go Round quilt! I'm so glad to be finished. There were a lot of little pieces to match up. This pattern was from McCall's Quilting magazine. I love quilting magazine's because you get several patterns often for less than the price of one. After I started I noticed the original pattern by American Jane called for 3 jelly rolls and each block was made of 3 hexagons around instead of two. I was a little disappointed at first until I started to put the quilt together! Two was enough! I started this quilt in September and just finished Friday night. I kept putting it away to work on other things because I needed a break. Actually, I did the first half in just a few days, but needed a break then and then I kept putting it away to work on other projects when I got it back out again. Here is a close up of the hexagons. That middle red one looks like it's a bit curvy, but it's just the way the pattern on the fabric happened to work out.

It took forever to sew the binding on the front. Maybe 30-45 minutes. It wasn't bad to stitch down at all on the back though. I really like that it doesn't have four straight edges. It's kind of fun to do something different. Now I kind of want to do Black Diamonds, Flags, or Triple Crown.

I got a little polka dotty on the backing and binding. I bought the back on clearance (as usual). Then I knew I wanted a black binding and found a polka dot too. I didn't realize until later I got polka dot for both.

Over all I'm happy with the quilt. It's always fun to try something different for a change. I like the happy, bright colors too.

Now.... to finish 1974 and two other long standing projects.