Sampler: complete!

I finished my first hand-quilted project: the sampler I showed a snippet of the other week. This is really little, less than 12 inches square, but was the perfect size for practicing on. I think the end result is pretty charming - it looked really cute under my vase of Valentine's Day flowers. I used embroidery floss to do the quilting because I have a ton of it on hand in every color imaginable. I checked out some pearl cottons the other day and can see how working with those would make the quilting MUCH easier. "Popping the knot through the first layer of fabric" looks like an easier feat with the pearls. I created quite a few snags and weird pulls with all my knot popping disasters. And then I machine-bound it in a hurry, which resulted in a less-than-perfect binding, another thing that drives me nuts. But again, imperfection is good practice for me - it goes against my nature in what is probably a good way.



Now this imperfect charming little quilt is on its way to some dear friends - a house full of girls who I know have tea parties and pink bedrooms and all those things this quilt deserves but I cannot give. Hope you like it!

Sampler

I spent the entire afternoon shoveling dirt out of a huge planter box that has been infiltrated by gophers. The plan is to replace the 10-year-old wire mesh at the bottom of the box and hopefully get a few more productive years out of the bed. It was HARD, and boy am I proud of myself! But it doesn't make for a very pretty picture (neither the pile of dirt or ME), so I decided to share this with you instead.

I ended up with a ton of extra hexagons while working on my hexagon quilt. These ones just didn't fit in for one reason or another, so the other day I decided to sew them together into... something. Of course it would have made more sense to work on one of the many other unfinished projects I have laying around, but whatever. I'm always most excited about the new project that pops into my head. I'm thinking of this as a sampler of sorts. It was really good practice for me in terms of sewing hexagons together, and I am planning on hand quilting it, which is what I'd like to ultimately do on my real hexagon quilt. This little thing is a much less intimidating piece to learn on.



This was my first time ever basting with clothespins - this is the bag I received from my Grandma a few years ago. I usually use straight pins and routinely jam them into my fingers while machine quilting whatever I'm working on. It's just part of my process. Somehow, though, that didn't sound as trivial when paired with hand-quilting. I'd like that experience to be as relaxing and pain-free as possible, so I braved the clothespins. I've always avoided them because it annoys me to have to close them. Basting is my least favorite part of quilting and I'd rather bleed all over my quilt than close up a few clothespins - it seems to take too long. This was easy, though, because my tiny quilt is only about 12" square. I'm thinking it would look cute under a vase of flowers or something. Of course there is no wall space to speak of on which to hang it, and maybe it is too crazy and weird for that anyways. I'll probably just tuck it away until I have a real sewing space to put it.

Hexagon Flowers

Here is my hexagon progress to date. You are looking at 11 hexie flowers - only 106 to go! I made a lot of progress on our road trip, sewing hexagons until my little box got too full, then switching over to attaching them into flowers. As you can see, there isn't really a rhyme or reason to my color scheme. I'm just using fabrics that I like and planning on anchoring them with the occasional white hexagon throughout as well as white around the outside border. Everything I make ends up pretty bright and in violation of color rules, but I like things that way.



Our TV broke yesterday, which has been a blessing in disguise. Last night I worked on some hexie flowers while listening to Harry Potter cd's - bliss! Looking forward to doing more of the same tonight, as the hubbie has a few outside projects he's been working on after the kids go to bed.



This is my view beyond the little hexie photo shoot I set up. Here in bloggy land I tend to crop out the most important part of pictures, so I decided to give you a glimpse of reality. I'd like to find whoever invented Legos and kiss them on the mouth. :)

Sunday Sewing

I usually find myself with a bit of quiet sewing time on Sunday afternoons, thanks to my husband. Today I finished up my custom bib order - they are SO cute! I snapped this teaser picture but didn't have time to bust out the fancy camera and do an official photo shoot, so you'll just have to use your imagination.



Finishing those allowed me to do some work on my hexagon quilt. I love making these little guys - it 's very soothing. I'm the type who always needs to be doing something even when I'm sitting down relaxing, and this is the perfect portable project.



I've only finished a little more than 100, and have about 1,000 more to go, but I'm really enjoying working with so many different fabrics. I printed this awesome coloring sheet that Melanie over at Texas Freckles created and worked on figuring out my hexagon layout. As you can see, I had a little help. I'd also like to mention that I did this while in the heat of a Nerf Gun War. How's that for multi-tasking?