Odds and Ends

Decided to take a trip out to the nearest Hobby Lobby today.  I was not impressed.  There was a lot of frames, flower “stuff” and knick-knacks.  Not much of a fabric selection for quilting, a few cross stitch kits that I would love to get, but they were $42 each and I just couldn’t justify it right now.  I didn’t find any of the items I was looking for, which means I’ll need to order them online now.  I’ve been looking for some vinyl numbers (years) for a project that I found on Pinterest.  I finally remembered that one of my friends has a cricut and I’ve asked her if she can do what I need.  I doubt I’ll go back there, especially since it’s almost a 45 minute drive from my house.

Tumbler RunnersBack before Christmas I was playing with a new Go die I had ordered and decided to use up some scraps to make a runner for the island.  While I finished the top, I never got it quilted before the holidays and just put it on the island as a top.  I managed to quilt it in January but hadn’t sewn the binding down to the back.  I also had a pile of additional pieces cut out to make a smaller runner for the dining room table and got that put together and quilted over the weekend.  So my Super Bowl project was sewing down binding on them.    Took me a few days to get all that binding sewn down, but I’m loving how they look!  I used scraps for the back and for the first time I sewed pieces of scrap batting together to make pieces big enough.  It was not as hard as I thought it was going to be, and I used up a bunch of littler pieces.  For smaller projects this will be a great way to use up all those little pieces.  I just can’t see doing it for a larger quilt, I’d rather buy the right size instead of piecing it together.

Paper Pieces Order

I also spent a little money this week!  I decided that instead of printing and cutting more hexagon pieces myself (which would involve getting more paper the right thickness), I’d buy some from paperpieces.com.  I ordered Sunday, they shipped Monday and I got them on Wednesday!  Can’t beat that!  I ordered the biggest pack of hexagons, and I also bought some diamonds and triangles that will match up with the 1″ hexagons, just because I have ideas in my head I’d love to try out sometime.  If I was ordering I might as well get all the pieces I wanted at the same time.  I need to punch holes in the center of the hexagons so I pin them like all the ones I’ve made myself.  I’m trying to decide if I want to make all the hexagon diamonds first or put them into the quilt as I make them.  Having this many hexagon papers will help, but I still don’t think it’s going to be enough.  One of these days I need to count how many pieces are going to be in this quilt.  If my calculations are correct there are 1605 hexagons in the diamonds (half and full).  I have no clue how many hexagons are in the pathways, that will take a lot longer to count up!  Maybe this will be enough hexagons.  I also need to take all the papers out of my first hexagon quilt so I can use those too, that will be the next one that I hand quilt, if I can ever get back to my second practice piece.

I’m thinking about joining a hexagon swap, I can’t commit to the current one because I need to get other items done first.  I’m just concerned about the way they baste, I’d like to baste my way!

Oh well, things to do around the house, hopefully I’ll be back with some updates soon.