Hand Piecing – Page 6 – Kelly's Kwilts

Odds and Ends

I haven’t been able to post lately, because I haven’t had anything to write about! I finally got the next row on my hexagon quilt, I’m up to 5 rows and have 3 left to do. I finally got some more Thimble-It stick on thimbles, so I can start working on that again.

I joined a group on Facebook that is doing a SAL (stitch a long). The chart is Joan Elliott’s Dream – 1 of a set of 4. I’ve been keeping up quite well and decided that since I could get the book at the library I’d do all 4 of them. I’m using a 28 ct Jobelan called Summer Sky. I’ve got Hope caught up to match Dream and I’ve started Believe. I can’t believe how fast these are working up, even on 28 ct fabric! I’ve always worked on regular aida and using anything else has been harder since I’m doing 2 over 2. I really do like how they are turning out though!

I got my package from Nicole at Just Keep Stitching today. The lavender smells wonderful, but it’s so strong I had to put it in another ziploc bag and get it out of my office. I’m thinking of planting in my flower beds, anyone know if it will spread?? She also sent along a pack of flower seeds, can’t wait to get those in the flower beds too! Thanks Nicole!

I decided that I was going to join the Dear Jane Siggie Swap this year. I’ve been working on putting together the blocks today, I have 16 ready to be signed and another 20 ready to be put together. We haven’t gotten the final count yet, I’m hoping it’s not much more than 36! 🙂 I’ll post a picture when I get them done. I’m looking forward to putting the quilt together once we get all the blocks, haven’t decided how I want to do it yet though. The block is really easy, it’s just a 3.5″ square for the center in a light fabric so you can write on it and 4 triangles around that. I had a huge stack of 4.5″ squares I cut from scraps with my Go, so I just had to cut them in half. I just had to buy some light fabric for the centers, and I picked up Kona White the other day. One of these days I’m thinking of buying a bolt of Kona white or Moda white solid….course I need some money for that!! 🙂

Hope to post more soon!!

Winner!

I can’t believe it! I won a giveaway at Just Keep Stitching today! I get a Lizzie*Kate chart and a bag of lavender, can’t wait to get the chart, it’s a tooth fairy one and I’ll need to make a tooth fairy pillow in the next couple of years.

I haven’t been doing much sewing lately. I was working so quickly and so much on the hexagon quilt that I tore my finger up pretty good. I’ve been letting it heal and working on cross stitch instead. I joined a SAL (stitch a long) on Facebook and we are working on Joan Elliott’s Dream pattern. It’s one of a series of 4, and I’ve decided I might as well do all of them and hang them together. Just waiting to get the book from the library. Since I finished the first part of the SAL rather quickly I decided to pick up a UFO that has been sitting here for awhile. It’s a kit that I bought on ebay years ago. I finished 1 of the 3 parts last year and just put the whole thing away. In about a week I’ve almost got the 2nd one completed.

I think I’ll be able to start working on the hexagon quilt again soon, I bought some new thimble pads last week, I’m hoping they will help and my finger won’t get all chewed up again.

I’ll be back soon!

Design Wall Monday

I’ve been working hard the last week on my hexagon quilt. Every night after Alex goes to bed I can sit and watch basketball and/or shows with my husband and work on it. I have a very small section left and I will be halfway done. I stopped last week at my favorite quilt shop Anna’s Sewing Center and picked up 5 1/4 yards of white on white. The white sections were starting to look the same, I needed some more variety. Hoping to get the last section put together tonight while we watch tv and either get it added on tonight or tomorrow while Alex plays. Then I need to start working on more flowers! The picture is a little blurry, I took it with my iphone and was trying to keep the dog and Alex off of it. It is so large I can’t get the picture on my sewing table anymore, it has to go on the floor.

Head over to Patchwork Times to see what everyone else is up to.

Design Wall Monday

I thought since I finally started working on stuff that I’d participate in Judy’s Design Wall Monday over at PatchworkTimes. I think I said the other day I was going to redesign my hexagon quilt, now it’s 50 x 50 and boy do I need a lot of flowers! I am going to need 56 flowers, currently I’m up to 24 – 20 of them are currently sewn together. I’m shocked at how much work I’ve gotten done in just under 3 weeks of hand work. I’m finding that I have a lot more time than I thought when I can work on hand projects, mostly when Alex is playing and doesn’t need me. I used to just sit and read, sewing is better! 🙂

Here’s an export from EQ of what the quilt is going to look like, the browns are actually scrappy, but all will have the red centers. I’m also thinking that the red border will actually be scrappy reds, I just haven’t decided if I want to stick with 1 color for the blue border (scrappy blues) or do totally scrappy like I did with the flowers. Anyone have an opinion? I don’t think I’m going to do the binding following all those points, I’m pretty sure I’m going to cut them off even and square it up.

I spent all of Saturday afternoon up working on getting mom’s quilt tacked so I can get it off the frame and give it to her to quilt. Then I need to get going on quilting the one for my sister, I guess she’s redo-ing her bedroom and this quilt plays into that. Hope it’s big enough for her bed!!!

Still flying along!

I really have been flying on this hexagon quilt. I’d say I’m just about halfway done and I’ve only been working on it for 2.5 weeks! I was surfing today while I was stitching some pieces together and found an interesting website with the History of Hexagons. I also saw a picture that gave me a great idea for the border, and no, I’m not telling until I have it designed out in EQ and know for sure that’s what I’m doing. I still haven’t decided how big I want to go with this, but I do know I want to try hand quilting it. I was thinking about making a small flower – maybe with 2 rings around the center hexi – and hand quilting that first before I start on the whole quilt. I still want to take a class on hand quilting, but I don’t know if and when that will happen. I forgot to post the picture the other day of the pile of 2.5″ squares I cut with my Accuquilt Go, so I’ve posted that below along with the current status of the top – I can’t wait to get more done!

DSCN0293 — Pile of 2.5" Squares cut with Accuquilt Go

DSCN0295 — Hexagon quilt status 02-24-12

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about blogging and something bothers me. You don’t know if anyone is actually reading it or if you are really just talking to yourself! I know my hubby reads this, because it’s in his RSS feeds and he mentions it all the time, “I see you blogged today”. But I don’t know if anyone else is reading this or not. I don’t seem to get any comments, which makes me think either I’m not interesting, or no one is reading. Oh well, it is what it is I guess.

WOW!

I got my new die yesterday and boy is it nice! I just cut 48 2.5″ squares in 1 pass out of a fat quarter! And there is so little waste! Here’s some pics I took as I did it. I’ve cut up 2 fat quarters so far, I have 6 more to do, plus the three 1/4 yard white on white’s that I bought. I’m really glad I spent the money for the die, should have done this sooner. I’ll have to finish cutting later, Alex is up from his nap and I need to give him a bath! I’ll be back later with a picture of all the pieces I cut out today!

So much done!

Oh my goodness have I accomplished a lot lately! Today was the guild sew-in, only 2 people besides me showed! I finished the blocks for The Quilt Show 2010 BOM and started working on the borders. I got the first set done, I have 136 half square triangles to put together for the next set of borders. Probably won’t get to that yet, but it’s next on the agenda!

Remember last year when I said I was going to start hand piecing a quilt? Well, since I want to use the 2.5″ squares on the hexagon quilt I decided to just machine piece everything I had done and see how big it was going to turn out. It’s kinda on the small side unfortunately (only 20″ x 36″) , I’m thinking I might put some borders on it and have it in the car for Alex. We’ll see what I decide to do with it, it won’t be anytime soon! I might just decide to start making more blocks and make it bigger, I do like how it looks.

My die from Accuquilt shipped last week and should be here Monday, so I will be able to cut up the whites I bought last week and the fat quarters I pulled from the stash. I’m really happy with how it looks so far, I did a mock-up in EQ and right now it’s designed at 37″ x 43″. I’m not sure how big I want to make this, so for now that’s where I’m headed as a starting point. I need 39 whole flowers and 10 half flowers for the top and bottom, right now I’ve got 15 whole flowers completed. It looks dark in the picture but’s it really not that dark. I bought some plastic templates at Joann’s last week and have started using them. I haven’t decided if I like the heavier weight paper or the templates yet. They are a lot thicker than the paper, I’ll have to see if there’s a difference when it’s sewed together and the templates are removed.

Never got up to the frame the other day, I still need to finish removing the red tacks from the backing so I can get working on re-tacking it, I want it off that frame!!! Now that I have my MacBook pretty much setup the way I want with music, I’m hoping I can work on it tomorrow since I’ll have music to listen to while Alex sleeps!

Wow I’m flying!

Was it only Tuesday I posted about starting my hexagon quilt? I cannot believe how much I have done already! I’m using red centers for the flowers and scrappy around that center. White in between each flower. I have 9 flowers done, 7 of them almost all put together. Putting this much together allowed me to pull some of the templates out and I can work on getting more flowers together. I’m hoping (weather permitting) to go to Joann’s tomorrow and get some fat quarters – white for sure and possibly some colors – even though I have a bunch of squares all ready to go. A few years ago one of my friends gave me a gift certificate for Accuquilt, and I haven’t used it yet. I think I’m going to get the 2.5″ square die which will cut out 9 squares per layer at once. It’ll be so much faster doing it that way instead of using the value die that came with my Go that only cuts 1 per layer at a time. It’ll also help when I decide to go back to my other hand piecing quilt project with the 4 patches.

I didn’t mention it the other day, but I never made it to the guild sew-in last month. I spent the morning of the 26th prepping Star Crazy and making my pillow case contribution. By the time Alex got up I wasn’t feeling very well and had a fever! Somehow I managed to get the flu and was sick until the following week. However, they are having another one this weekend and I already told hubby I needed to go. Have to figure out a way to start working on my projects!!!

Hoping to get up to the frame in a little bit to see how much I can get done on basting my mom’s turning twenty quilt. I had it almost done and discovered that there wasn’t enough backing fabric the way I had attached it to the frame. Had to take it all out and start over again. Since I’m using those red plastic tacks I need to get the off the backing so I can start again. Hoping to get that done soon so I can quilt the tumbler quilt for my sister – haven’t worked on that in a long time! I just went back to link to the post where I showed it and I haven’t taken a picture of it yet! I don’t feel like taking it out right now, but I’ll get a picture before it goes on the frame.

New Project

I don’t even know how it started. I was reading blog posts and clicked on a link that took me somewhere and next thing I know I’m deciding to use my already cut 2.5″ squares to make 1″ hexagons. I printed out templates on matte photo paper since it’s heavier than regular paper. I’ve already got 29 basted and ready to start stitching together. I can start working on that tomorrow, hubby and I will be watching the Cavs/Miami basketball game. Nights that his team play my team are always tense, but we still love each other!

It’s been awhile….

I know, I’ve been absent for awhile. I don’t get much time to sew anymore since I spend all my free time (and some that’s not free) with Alex. I can’t believe he’s going to be 5 months old on Monday! Time is going by way too fast!

Anyway, since I don’t have time to sew at my machine anymore, and since I’ve been kinda jealous of Karen with all the hand piecing and hand quilting that she does. And because I have my little tubs full of already cut up scraps of fabric, I decided to start hand piecing a quilt. Once Alex goes to bed at 9, I’m just too tired to sit at the sewing machine to sew. But I’m awake enough to be able to hand piece blocks while I watch basketball games or movies with my husband! I’m making 4-patch blocks, 2 white and 2 scraps. I had to pull a bunch of white fat quarters out and cut them into squares with my Go, because I just don’t have a lot of white scraps. Not quite sure why. I took it with me last night to guild and managed to sew 17 pairs of 2 together. This is not something I even care about being finished right away, and I might set it aside and work on something else, but for now it’s the only sewing I can do!

IMG-20110311-00108 — The start of the hand pieced quilt!

I did pick up 3 kits from guild last night to make charity quilts. I need to help more in the guild and I really need to get in front of my sewing machine before I forget how to use it!

In addition to working on the hand pieced quilt, I’ve decided that I want to learn to hand quilt. Again, since I don’t have a lot of time in front of the machine, I need to do things that I can work on in the family room while Alex is playing or we are watching tv at night. There is a class in May that I’m going to sign up for, hubby can take care of Alex for a 3.5 hour class! Oops, just realized that I have a dentist appt that day, now I don’t know if I can sign up…..doggone it!

I’ll try not to be a stranger anymore….I need to start reviewing books, blogs, something!!! Oh and here’s a gratuitous picture of my baby!!! 🙂