Hexie Temperature Quilt

Lots of updates!

I finished this months Table of Elements section with plenty of time to spare. It was getting difficult to hold the scroll frame while trying to stitch so I ordered a stand with an Amazon gift card I received. It’s taken some getting used to using both hands for stitching, but it’s made me actually stitch faster since my right hand isn’t going under the frame for each stitch. Right hand now stays on top and left hand stays on the bottom. Now I’m looking to see if I can put some of my other projects in a scroll frame so I can work on them faster. I’ll be able to just switch out the frame on the stand when needed. Can’t wait for Monday to get the next piece of the design, we had 13 elements for the first month and for February we get 20 elements! Since I’m hoping to have other projects done before then, I might actually be able to stay on target with this.

I had to order way too many fabrics to try and get what I wanted for the last border on this quilt and still didn’t get the one I wanted. But after a couple of guild meetings where I asked advice from friends, I picked a fabric and got the borders on this and now it’s ready to be quilted. I talked about finding the pieces for this quilt back in 2020, the post is here. This was a fun quilt to do, and used a ton of my 1.5″ squares, but somehow there’s still a ton of them in the bin. I have another quilt that will use a bunch of those, that will be another post though!

Wow, this 2017 Hexagon Temperature Quilt took 5 years to complete the top! I started part way the year in 2017 and just totally lost the urge to work on it for awhile. The hexagon blocks were done for a long time, I just needed all the sashing pieces completed. I even had the 4 border pieces completed way before I needed them. Thankfully EQ allows me to see how many pieces are used in a quilt, 1,415 2.5″ squares in this quilt. Yet somehow the bin is just as full as it was before! I have 1 little lone hexagon that needs appliqued on and it’s ready for quilting. I have so many ready for quilting!!

So while I was doing some cleaning and putting things away I found a bin of already cut HST pieces that finish at 2.5″. So I decided that would be perfect to use as a leader/ender project while I work on other things. I matched up everything I had already cut – 1 white with 1 color and then found that I had a TON of colored triangles that needed a white to match. Ended up spending an afternoon cutting white-on-white fabrics with the Studio, I needed 356 white triangles cut and then spent time during Cassie’s gymnastics class pinning them together so they are ready to stitch when I need them. Have no clue what pattern I’ll use for these yet, I have plenty of time before that needs to be figured out!

I finally finished the Harry Potter quilt top!!! Well I need to do a border still, but the fabric is sitting here waiting to be cut and sewn on. I am only going to do a small border on the top and bottom since it’s already the right size for our bed. I need a little bit more on the sides though. I have no clue what to do about the backing yet, I have a bunch of different Harry Potter fabrics I’m thinking about putting together for the back, I just don’t know if I have enough or not though.

I’m very excited that I’m making progress on so many things this month. I currently have 46 items on my 2022 UFO Challenge list, and I think about 20 of them JUST need quilted. I’m still saving up to get a long arm and I’m hoping there are some good deals at the sewing expo this year that will allow me to get the one I want for less money. Still not 100% sure where it’d go if I do get one, but man I’d be able to get so many quilts completely finished if I had one! I’ll be back in a few days with more, I have an OMG post to do as soon as I finish the EPP work on Cassie’s quilt and I have a new project to let you know about.

Goodbye 2021!

Wow, what a year we’ve had! Lots of camping and family time, some health issues with Raven back in the spring – she’s back to acting like her old self – and not much finishing of projects! I’m determined that 2022 will be the year of finishing projects and I’ve been getting things to the point where I can finish them.

I’ve been working on Cassie’s bed quilt, since it’s EPP I can work on it at night. 3 rows are put together and I have the 4th ready to add on, possibly tonight since we are staying up to see the ball drop.

I’ve been working on cross stitch this year, trading off with EPP and my puzzles. I did a couple of Star Wars planets (patterns from Etsy), did 2 of the teacher pieces in the spring, and lately I’ve been working on the Deathly Hallows that I found on Etsy. Monday I’m starting on a SAL with PixelPatterns and we are doing the periodic table over I think it’s 7 months. I have everything ready to start, except the pattern!

I’m still working on too many EPP projects, but some of them are REALLY long term projects. I have the EPP pentagon quilt top almost done, unfortunately I need to order fabric for the border before I can finish it, the piece I want to use is too small, and it’s pretty small so I should be able to quilt it on my domestic. Haven’t done much on the Dear Jane EPP quilt, but a little bit got done on the Hexie Insanity quilt. I’m hoping that once I get the hand work done on Cassie’s quilt that I’ll be able to get another old EPP quilt put together.

I’m still working on saving the money to get the longarm machine that I want, it would help me finish quilts so much faster! I might see about renting time on a machine and see how much it will cost. I just don’t know if I’d be better off saving the money toward my own instead of renting time. We’ll see.

The Harry Potter quilt blocks have now all been cut out, and like I mentioned yesterday I have only 2 left to stitch. Once I get those done I can start putting the rows together, but I can’t get too much of it done since I need more of the background fabric that I’m using for sashing. I only have a little bit of it left. I can’t wait to get this one done since it’s for our bed. The quilt I have on it now is a queen and doesn’t fit very well on the king bed!

Happy New Year, be safe if you are going out and hopefully I’ll be back soon because something is finished! 🙂

Long Time No See!

Wow! I wasn’t planning on being gone so long! Life took over with lots of activities for the kids, camping over the summer and with new school year volunteers are allowed back in the school! I’ve been spending lots of time with 2 kindergarten classes, plus PTA activities and holiday parties for the kids.

Since the holidays are over and all gifts finally got sent out (1 package went out late!) I decided that as much as I could this week I wanted to spend some time sewing. I have a few quilts in process that I’d like to get to a finished state, or at least finish the tops. I’m still saving up for a long arm, it’s very slow going! Today I got back to working on the Harry Potter SAL quilt, finished the Quidditch Cup and started working on Fawkes. Hoping that I can finish Fawkes tomorrow and cut out the last 2 blocks I have to put together!

While I was working on the HP blocks I worked on stitching the sashing strips I need to continue working on my 2017 Hexie temperature quilt. I now have all the strips done for the sides of the blocks that have been done for awhile, so I can start putting the rows together, possibly while I’m working on finishing up the HP top.

I have some cross stitch projects I’ve started in the last few months, I’ll write about them another day. One is a SAL (stitch-a-long) that starts on Monday (1/3) that I can’t wait to work on.

Back soon (I hope)!

Mystery Quilt

Wow! I can’t believe that I managed to make 100 blocks in 13 days! Laundry Basket Quilts is doing a mystery quilt that started on March 20th, but I didn’t find out about it until the 23rd when I started working on blocks. This was a wonderful stress reliever since the kids started online learning last week. We spent the mornings doing school work and then the kids had the afternoons to play or do whatever they wanted to do. Some of the colors in the pictures aren’t correct, I used all pinks and blues, similar to the pattern. I did change the first one to purples, just because I had those colors already cut in that size.

In the process of working on all of these blocks, I managed to complete 3 bow tie blocks, 2 blocks for a mini quilt I’m working on and 3 blocks for the hexie temperature quilt! If I can applique the last 2 blocks tonight I can finish them and put together the next 2 rows of the hexie temperature quilt. Hoping to work on the Harry Potter quilt this week too, we’ll see what I can get done this week!

Hexie Temperature Quilt Update

Wow! I spent the afternoon, minus time for a family walk outside on the bike path, working on pulling fabrics for the hexie temperature quilt. Unfortunately for me, I had to do some cutting into fat quarters for a lot of it because I just didn’t have the colors in my 2.5″ square bin. But that’s ok with me, at least I now have ALL the squares for the hexies I need and I can work on basting and doing the flowers whenever I want. I will most likely start working on them tonight, there are 4 weeks already basted and they just need put together into a flower. Then I’ll have a stack ready for applique and borders.

I’m starting to feel good about progress made so far this year on quilts. I have 2 basted and ready for quilting, 2 have been finished and knocked off the UFO Challenge list and I’m making progress on multiple in progress quilts. Hubby just left to pick up our dinner and I’m going to work on ironing the scrap basket fabrics so they can be cut down and put in the correct tubs when I have time. I need to get this office cleaned up and that’s just phase 1!

Lots of Updates!

Amazingly I haven’t had a lot of things that required me to leave the house the last few days. So I decided that it was time to spend some time sewing! Well I did take a nice long walk the other day it was so nice!

So first item up on my list was to get the border put on the Pokemon quilt. This top has been done for almost 2 years and I don’t know what I was waiting for! Not the best picture, kids had things out and I couldn’t get a better one. But the border is now on this and it’s in the to be quilted pile!

Since the top is now done I decided all the solids leftover from this could go into the Harry Potter quilt, since I need more to make it bigger than the original SAL. I think the SAL was for a twin bed size/throw and I’m making it large enough to fit our king size bed and hang over the sides properly – which I can never do for some reason. 🙂 So everything shown in the basket at the top is from the Pokemon quilt. In fact I used some of it already to make my next Harry Potter block! 9 3/4 is finished and I have 12 more blocks to go!

So with that done I decided to pull out my 2017 Hexie temperature quilt (picture from post in 2018) and see where I was with that. Boy did I leave that project in a mess! Back in 2018 I put the first 2 rows together and then put together the blocks and appliqued all the hexie flowers that were completed. It looks like I have 4 flowers that still need to be put together and I can possibly put the next 2 rows together. However, it looks like I never updated my spreadsheet/trello with what was completed AND it looks like I never got the high temp for the day from August 28th to the end of the year! So it looks like I’ll spend a little time today gathering the rest of my data and maybe even pulling fabrics for more hexies. Since we are going on a mini vacation for Spring Break I’ll need a project (or 2) to take with me!

Cassie wants to do some sewing today, we’ll see if she really makes anything!

Wow, it’s been more than a month since I posted! I don’t think I took my sewing out even once while we were camping. I know that the week we were gone I spent a lot of time swimming with the kids, and reading. In the last month I’ve gotten 3 blocks completed, I think I need one more block and I can put the next row together. I need to start pulling fabrics for the rest of the year, hopefully I can do that once school starts and the kids are both at school.

I really want to get back to working on hexie insanity and Dear Jane EPP. But I need to get something finished!

Linking up to Sarah Did It.

Hexie Day

Sarah over at Sarah did it! has a HELP for Hexie-aholics post one day a month and I finally have something to link up! I’ve been working on my 2017 hexie temperature quilt lately, and I finally got the first 2 rows put together! I had pulled fabrics for the first half of the year awhile ago, and I have gotten enough hexie flowers put together that I can applique them to the background squares and do the framing of each block.

I have a good handful of hexies ready to put together into flowers, before I need to pull fabrics for the rest of the year. I’m hoping that I can get the flowers done next week while we are camping. I need to get working on all these UFO’s!

July Goals

Ugh! Has it really been 3 months since I’ve posted? May was so busy with end of school activities that I don’t even remember doing any sewing. As soon as school was out it was off to California to visit the in-laws, then another trip to Virginia for more family visits. Here it is already in July and we are home for 2 weeks before another camping trip. I’m really hoping it’s enough time to get some things done!

Last month I had plans to join the guild community sewing day, but kids halted that plan in it’s tracks. Alex had a fever and wasn’t going to be going to his Lego Camp so I had to stay home. So at the guild meeting I picked up a kit to make a small quilt for one of our community groups. I’d like to get this finished before our meeting next week.

I have 2 quilts that I need to do for my friend, both are signature quilts that won’t take long to put together, I’ve made at least 4 of them for her in the past, I just need to get moving on them! So this month I want to at least get them cut out and the tops put together. If I get more done great, if not that’s ok I’ve at least gotten some work done on them!

I hope to be doing more sewing, but summer is hard when the kids are here all day or we are gone camping. I’ve slowly been working on my hexie temperature quilt, but I have a LONG way to go on that one!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts.

Slow Stitching Sunday 102917

Wow, I just realized that it’s been a long time since I’ve done an update on my Hexie Temperature quilt. I’m slowly putting the hexie flowers together, appliqueing them to the white block and then putting borders on them. I now have 6 completed, and I have 2 more that just need the borders. I need to decide when I’m going to start putting the rows together, I might wait until I can put 2 complete rows together, which means 12 blocks and 2 blank ones – that I still need to make.

After dinner, while I watch basketball I’m planning on trying to finish the binding on my Dear Jane quilt and hopefully start appliqueing the few triangle blocks I have onto the back. I’m not doing going to do a label, instead I am going to write on the back with a fabric pen so it’s permanent. If I manage to finish that tonight then I plan to work on either more Hexie Temp flowers or my Dear Jane EPP, I’ve been missing that one too 🙂

Linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching.