I caved! Granny Square QAL

I tried. I really did but I couldn't hold out from doing the Granny Square Quilt Along when Shane suggested I make a baby quilt for our neighbour. I wanted something fairly simple, and I wanted to use fabric I already had. Since you can make the Granny Squares using strip piecing I decided that it was a go.

It took awhile to figure out the fabric until I found the container hold almost a fully jelly roll of Max & Whiskers from when I made Avalanche, which is available at Fat Quarter Shop as a PDF still.

I add some black for the setting, and will be sashing both the blocks and border in black. I really like how it sets off the fabrics. And I still have a browns, whites, oranges and some yellows left! I'll be sad when I do finally finish my stash of this line because it really is perfect for kids, and boys in particular. It's not cutsy but it is kid friendly, and both Shane and I like it, even for adults.

Now to trim them up and hope I did it right!

Another hexie project

I have my MFHexy project for when I'm out and about, but when sitting on the couch I have different hexie project on the go.

I got the idea from the Hexa-Go-Go book I reviewed.
I'm using a charm pack of Rural Jardin by French General and so far I've only had to add a couple of spare charm squares in the red. I'll probably have to add some to the whites but not many I think. I'm going to go around the diamond once with the white, and then fill in to make the piece rectangular with whites, and maybe the tans too.

Because I'm using the Sizzix Big Shot I can get 4 of the 1.25" hexies from each charm square. That's 168 hexies from one charm pack! You can do a lot with that many hexies. Like make 24 hexie flowers.

MFHexy quilt along

 I've been plugging away at my MFHexy quilt. I have almost all the flowers done. And now have to sew them in rows. Which I may not do. I have an idea but will have to see if it would work before I share it.

I did get the border fabric, I'm using Moda Crossweave in Apple. It matches the light green that is in a few of the prints, and I think it will help lighten up the quilt since I'm using the darker of the colourways from Lilly Belle.
Which I'm loving more and more.

There is so many little details I only notice while I'm working with such small pieces. And because I'm hand sewing them, I can look closer then when they're zooming past when machine sewing.

This has been a great project to have on the go this summer. I can take it anywhere and work on it when Little Bit is playing.

Hello? Anyone there? I got a quilting frame!

I've been a bad, bad blogger. My poor blog has been so ignored lately! So much is going on and I often think about something to blog about but by the time I get around to trying to blog I've either forgot what I was going to blog about or it's no longer relevant or timely.

I won't promise to not go MIA again because, well, I probably will at some point. But I really miss blogging so I'm going to really make a point for posting more often, even if they are shorter posts. Or **gasp** photo-less!

August is a very hard month for me. My son's birth & death days fall in August, and it always takes me awhile to move out of my memories and emotions around that, then back to school starts looming which drives both Little Bit and me into a tizzy.
I'm also not feeling well, and the insane weather has left me foggy and hurting.

But none of that is actually what I was planning on blogging about today!


I had my sewing room painted! My fabulous little sister came and painted it all for me, which wasn't as hard as getting the awful wall paper border down was. She did that too lol.
 Before

  

After!

The colour makes me so happy. It's calming and pretty but not distracting and I don't think it will effect how I see fabrics when I'm making a quilt.

I have exciting news! With the help of my dad, my older sister and my mom I was able to get a quilting frame and mid arm machine!! No more renting the longarm at the shop! Getting the frame to fit in my sewing room required some more rearranging, and some storage having to leave the sewing room, but we made it fit!

I'll miss the ladies at the shop and talking for hours with people while I quilt but I'm so happy not to be under time limits when quilting. I can take my time, take breaks, and enjoy the process more.

Once I get some of my own tops quilted up I'll be ready to quilt for others. I'm also going to do a contest of some sort for free quilting.

More to come!

Just for Fun! Hexie bag!

 Lately I've not had a lot of time to sew just for fun. But one of the things I decided I did want to do was Katy's MF Hexie quilt in the fabulous Bari J's Lilly Belle. (check out her blog to see 14 days of Lilly Belle, where she's doing a new project EACH day!)

I've been plugging away at basting and sewing hexies, in the end we need 666 (no I'm not making that up) petals and 74 centers. That's a whole lotta hexies. To keep myself a tiny bit organized I've been using a big ziploc bag to keep all my stuff together.

 But ziplocs while handy, aren't very pretty. And they don't have a handle.
So I decided to make a bag for my hexies.
And then decided it should be made out of hexies. I think I was insane at the time. Maybe from the crazy heat or the super bad sunburn I got last week.

Well whatever the reason I decided to make the hexie bag. I use the AccuQuilt 1.5" die, the 2.5" I thought was too big and the 1" way to small. I really wish there was a 2" on the die, I think it would have been better but whatever.


I had some left over Fandango by Kate Spain from when I made the filing cabinet cover for Moda Bake Shop and I found it when cleaning my sewing room to get it ready for painting so I decided to use it.


So here is my hexie bag for hexies!

 You can see how I've even tried to organize the inside! A pocket for my thread, of course using some Aurifil!, scissors, needle jar, and a pocket for the hexies waiting to be basted. I use a dab of glue to hold the papers to the hexies so they're in the pocket to keep the papers from being torn off. I use the bright pink thread to baste, so much easier to see when it's time to pull it out, and the grey and taupe to stitch the hexagons together.

 

 I even put a zipper on it! Just for you Bari! I hadn't originally planned on the zipper so I made the strap go through to make the bag draw up when hung. I'll fix that later when I find something to put on the ends of the strap because I used 1" grommets.

Have you ever made a bag just to hold a project? What do you think? Smart or crazy?

FNSI results, some more QAL blocks and news

hehehe I flaked on posting my sewing from the Friday Night Sew In. Mostly I had a Friday Night Cut Up. I used the Big Shot to cut a whole lot of 1.5" hexagons from Bari J's Lilly Belle fabrics. This stuff makes me so happy. As I was playing with it I noticed the feel is different then most quilt fabrics. It's closer to a batik feel and I asked Bari about it and she said that Art Gallery fabrics are a higher thread count then most of the industry, which you can very much feel.
The Big Shot makes cutting super fast. I can cut 24 hexies at a time! The die has 4 and I can do up to 6 layers at a time accurately. 

     I also made two more blocks for my Fig Tree Farmer's Mistress Quilt, but only one of them is actually from the books. I made a granny square block, which seems to be all the rage right now around blog world, and a a lightening bolt block.

 I love making these smaller blocks, I normally make 12" blocks but these are only 6 so they seem so cute. For those who are wondering you need 1.5" (unfinished) squares to get a 6" (finished) granny square block.

And for the news! Starting July 31st  there will be a daytime Talkin Tuesday! Now there are TWO chats! One starts at 1pm ET and the other at 9pm ET. I've had a lot of requests from the Europeans and some others who can't join in the evening chat so I'm adding a daytime one. The earlier chat will be #talknt2 and the evening the original #talknt.
I'm going to run the daytime chat on a trial basis for about 4 or 6 weeks to see how it takes before committing to making it permanent.

Friday Night Sew In!

It's been a long time since I've done a Friday Night Sew in, hosted by Heidi. and Bobbi . Every month they host a link party and encourage everyone to sew on Friday and either update during the night or do a post in the morning showing what you accomplished. I miss doing it so tonight I'm sewing!

Tonight I'm going to work on hexies since Bari J's super gorgeous Lilly Belle arrived today!! Check out her blog, there's a picture of a really nice quilt using Lilly Belle and link to a shop that has some kits, AND Lilly Belle cut into a jelly roll!