It’s January 2nd, and we had a great New Year’s Eve! The kids wanted to see the ball drop, so we let them stay up until midnight. OMG were they cuckoo crazy! Running around the room, and just being goofy. We played some video games and watched the ball drop and put them to bed just after midnight – let them sleep on the couch, which they’ve been asking to do for awhile.
I try this every year, maybe this year I can stay consistent and do something every month! I start every year out with good intentions in participating with the One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts and after a few months I just get so busy that I fizzle out and never get back to it. So let’s try it again! 🙂 This month I want to get the rest of my pentagons put together, there’s 18 of them left, and then pinned to the background and ready for applique.
Need to finish my inventory today so I can balance my 2020 books for the business and I really want to start some quilting today if I can. So I’m out of here! Good luck on your goals this month!
Ugh, I was so hoping to get more quilting done this year! We had all this time at home and I could have done so much. However, I did have an absolutely wonderful year for my business and had lots of time spent with the hubby and kids.
I have started hand quilting my first hexagon quilt, it’s slow going because I have so many hand projects that I rotate through. I’ve only been working in the white areas, because I haven’t decided what thread I want to use in the hexie flowers yet. I figure there’s a lot of white and I can decide the other color(s) later. You should be able to see the detail if you click on the pictures. My stitches aren’t 100% uniform, but I’m getting the hang of it and as it’s not going in a show/contest I don’t care. It’s mine and it’s been 100% stitched by hand. I don’t think I’m going to put a regular binding on it either, I’m thinking of doing a knife edge to it – I think I’ll need to do the edges before I quilt that last border though.
In October I started working on the pentagon project. It’s changed a few times since I decided what I wanted to do with it, so now I have 4 pentagons with a square in the middle appliqued to a background. I’ve gotten enough done that I put together the first row, used a ton of 1.5″ squares from the bin, and there’s a lot more that will be used by the time I’m done with this top. I’m working on putting the sashing together while I put together bow-tie blocks and the 9-patches I need for the border on that quilt. It’s all pretty mindless sewing when I need it.
As if I didn’t have enough hand projects, I pulled out some cross stitch and started working on that again. This is a piece for Alex and I have one I want to make for Cassie as well as one I want to make for 2 special teachers the kids have had. I have a bunch of Star Wars ones to make for Alex and at some point they’ll get done. In the past I’ve done all my cross stitch with paper patterns, but lately I’ve wanted to do it with an ipad. The app that I really want to use isn’t available for ios yet, and the android tablets we have are WAY to old for it to work. So I found a pdf app that will allow me to annotate the file and we’ll see how that works. I just got it updated last night but didn’t have time to try and see how well it works, might try that tonight.
Kids are off until next Monday (1/4), and I’m hoping to get some time to work on quilting. I got everything ready yesterday, because I intended on starting the quilting until I realized I may have inadvertently tossed my quilting gloves! I ordered a new pair yesterday, but who knows how long it will take for them to get to me. I’ll have to start quilting without them I guess and hope I have enough black thread to last until the new spool gets here with the gloves. I know I won’t be able to finish it before the end of the year, but I’d still like to start working on it and maybe start the new year with a finish.
Here’s hoping that 2021 is a better year for everyone and that I finish some projects in the new year!
Back in July when we were allowed to start having guild meetings again, one of our members – who owns a quilt shop – did a presentation and showed a new MSQC Quilt As You Go (QAYG) hexagon template. Of course I had to buy one! When I got home that night I grabbed a charm pack I had sitting here and some scraps of muslin to see how quickly I could put one together. While you can machine stitch them once you’ve folded the sides over, I decided to hand stitch them all. Because you know I needed another hand project 🙂 I used 3 charm packs I bought from Connecting Threads years ago, Mirage Garden and Mirage Home, for the centers and black and muslin for the backings. I used just enough of the muslin to account for the 6 really dark charm squares that just wouldn’t show up with a black binding/border, of course that was just enough to make a big hexagon for the center. 🙂 I think once I get my dresser in the bedroom cleared off – it’s a mess! – I’ll use this as a cover for it. But I might find somewhere else to use it in the meantime.
I’ve been busy the last few days working on orders – a few HUGE orders came in so it’s been all day with the embroidery machine running. Hope to start quilting the next quilt soon.
So I’ve been working on cleaning my office like I mentioned in my last post and I’ve been planning this cleaning for awhile now. Back in July or August I ordered another cabinet for in my office. Today my dad came over and put it up for me. A full cardboard box and items from other areas in my office now reside in the last cabinet on the right (in the picture). I still have room to access everything on my embroidery machine, but anything I don’t use a lot is now in the cabinet. Everything in my office feels open again since I put so much away!
I mentioned yesterday that I found cigar boxes with what I think were meant to be EPP projects. My EPP papers should be here Monday and I can start working on putting them together. I need to decide what color fabric I’m going to use for all the octagons, and then the backgrounds. I’ve used all the EPP papers that I had on-hand so that project is in a holding pattern until Monday. I do still need to figure out a setting for these, after I looked at each set I had a handful that did not have enough pieces so I’m down to 21 pentagon sets to work with.
I ordered an entire roll of batting and it just arrived yesterday. I’m ready to baste a quilt and get started quilting it!
How on earth is it already October? The last week has been busy in cleaning! My office has been a royal mess for quite some time and there’s a closet outside my office that has things just thrown in it and not put where they belong. So, the closet is now cleaned and organized, some things going to the basement and some getting tossed. Items from my office that don’t need to be up here are also going to the basement.
While I was working on cleaning off the mess of my sewing table I found 2 cigar boxes that a friend found at a garage sale that had fabric already cut out. Each box had various cardboard shapes for cutting out the shapes. I spent some time this afternoon trying to figure out exactly what I was going to do with these pieces, and looking at the EPP pieces that I have here that I could possibly use.
What I believe I have is 3 different quilts that will be made: Pentagons, bow ties and diamonds. The bow tie quilt will probably be the last one I work on, I don’t have any EPP pieces that will work for that right now, and there’s no cutting template for them either.
The pentagons I’m going to put together in rings with an octagon in the center – EPP papers are on order from paperpieces.com right now. I found 1 pack of papers here so I started glue basting some this afternoon/tonight just so I have a head start on them. Once I have the rings put together they will be appliqued to a background and the blocks then put together. It looks like there are 27 pentagon sets so I’ll have to play around with a setting – might have to make a couple extras in order to have an even setting. I’ll have to wait and see when I get these all together.
The second box had pieces that I think might have been going toward a wedding ring quilt, but there’s no way I’m going hand piece one of those! So I had to figure out something else I could do with all that fabric. 1″ diamonds fit nicely on the fabrics and I’m going to do them like tumbling blocks. I even basted and sewed one block together – this is going to take a LONG time since they finish so small. I had a small package of diamonds I ordered years ago, so I ordered a much bigger package with the rest of the EPP pieces. Not in any rush on any of these projects, because I have so many hand projects under way already!
I have a few finishes to share, I’ll get pictures taken and get a post up in a few days. I also have a roll of batting on it’s way so I can baste another quilt and start working on the quilting, especially since I now have a fairly clean sewing table!
I’m happy to add another 8 diamonds and 1 flower to my hexie insanity quilt. The count is now 32 of 158 diamonds completed and 18 of 64 flowers completed for a total of 4% done! LOL Last week I cut up one of the jelly rolls that I got for Mother’s Day last year, today I finished cutting up the other one. Between the 2 jelly rolls I have 1600 squares ready to be turned into hexies. I still have 3 charm packs and 4 quarter yard cuts that need to be cut up too, but I’ll do those once I get some of these other squares used up. I also bought a yard of white for the paths between the diamonds and I also decided to cut some of my white 2.5″ square smaller so there’s a variety in the white. I won’t cut any of that for a while though I want to get all the diamonds and flowers finished first. I keep trading off between this project and my knitting at night, depending on how tired I am. It’s a lot easier to fix hexies than the knitting – I hate taking stitches out of the knitting!! Hopefully be back tomorrow with a knitting update!
Well I finally did it. Â 2 years and 1 month ago I started my hexagon diamonds quilt. Â Today I put the last hand stitches into it. Â All 2,473 hexagons are sewn together and I just need to add a border to it and then sandwich and quilt it. Â I think I have a plan for quilting it, it’s not going to be anything fancy since this is a queen sized quilt! I’m trying to decide how thick the border needs to be, I’m thinking only about 3 inches just to have a stopping spot. Â I’m cutting all the sides even, but I still think it needs that little bit on all sides. Â I have a few hexies that were extras (counted wrong on a few diamonds) that I was thinking of appliqueing on the borders, I’ll have to see if they really need it when I get them added on.
Since I had the quilt on our bed, even though it is going to be used on the bed in the trailer, I decided my new quilt model needed a pic on it. Â She’s now 4 months old and such a joy in our lives! Such a happy baby!! Hope to start posting more often now that I’m getting a little more free time – not much, but I am getting to work on the sewing machine a little more lately!
I think I mentioned recently that I was going to try and work to finish my hexie diamonds quilt top so I can get it quilted to use next year camping. Â Well, I just finished another row and I only have 2 rows and black fill-in hexies to go! I really do love how it looks, but I might need to put a black border on it to finish the edges off before binding. Â I’ll have to think about this a little more.
We’ve been pretty busy lately getting ready for the holiday and having fun with the extended family. Â My brother-in-law and his kids came up for the holiday, so the last 3 days have been spent at the MIL’s with them. It’s been really nice seeing Alex play with his cousins again. Â He doesn’t want them to leave, and I wish they lived closer too!!!!
Oh well, off the computer and headed to work on my crochet. Â I’ve asked for a how-to knitting kit for Xmas and I’m pretty sure the hubby got it for me. Â I’ve always wanted to learn to knit, and now seems the right time. Besides I retaught myself how to crochet before Alex was born so I could make him a blanket. Â Now I can teach myself how to knit and make baby girl a blanket!
Well I finally did it and finished the quilt top for the guild block exchange! I only had to put the border on, and had originally intended on putting 2 borders – a thin one using the background fabric and then the thicker one using the focus fabric. Â Unfortunately I didn’t have enough of the background fabric to do a border, and not enough time to order more. Â So I just took that border out and put the thicker one on with the focus fabric. Â I do like how it looks, and I have NO clue how I’ll even quilt it. Â Now that it’s done I’ve folded it and hung it in the closet with the other tops needing quilted. Â I’m trying to get people interested in next years exchange, but I don’t have a single person that has signed up yet. Â I’ll keep trying, if I don’t get any takers I’ll order the fabric and make myself a quilt instead!
Last year I had found a pattern online and made a hexie wreath for the tree with a jingle bell in the center. Â I had pulled the 2.5″ squares to make 3 more but never finished them. I found them while looking for something else and decided that I needed to finish them this year. Didn’t take me long, when I was awake enough to work on them, they are now all hanging on the tree!
I did make a few items for Christmas gifts this year, however I will not be posting any information about them until after they have been received.  Right now the embroidery machine is humming along stitching out some free-standing lace gingerbread men ornaments.  I found the design on Embroidery Library – my favorite site for embroidery designs. I love doing lace designs, they turn out so cute and there’s really nothing I need to do for them.  Put the same color in the bobbin and on the top and let it go.  This design stitches out in under 20 minutes, so I can work on lots of other things while it runs.
I spent a little time working on cleaning things up in my office, things have gotten WAY too dusty and unorganized in here. Since I’m now done with pretty much all my Xmas gifts and just have to finish decorating and get a few items ready for folks the hubby works with I can spend some time working on items for myself. Â I’m hoping to finish Scrappy 9-patch this week and since they announced at our guild meeting last week that the next quilt show is going to be in October 2014, I’m planning on seeing if I can get hexie diamonds finished for the show. Â Of course I’d really rather it be ready for the 2014 camping season, but we’ll see what happens.
We have just barely started getting the baby’s room ready, which means my mini-pinni frame needs to come down. Â I asked hubby to leave it in the room for now, I have a few quilts I’d like to put on it to pin before we take it apart. Â The basement isn’t finished yet and I don’t want it setup in the basement until it’s cleaned and looking better down there! I think I’ll be able to easily quilt some of the scrappy quilts and get them finished before the baby is born.
I think I’m going to go play with a few of my Go dies and plan a few more quilts – I think baby girl needs something made by mommy!
I have been busy sewing this weekend! Â Friday I had gotten all the pieces for the hexie flowers basted and ready to be put together. I took this picture earlier today, at the time 6 flowers were ready to be appliequed and I was working on the other 6. Â As of right now I have another 4 flowers done and hope to finish the other 2 while I watch shows with the hubby tonight. Â They go pretty fast, so I don’t know why I can’t get it done.
I spent yesterday and this afternoon putting together the scrappy 9 patch center. Â I haven’t taken a picture yet, by the time I finished it was getting dark out and I didn’t have a good enough spot to take a picture. Â I need to put on a small black border and then the pieced border that I started putting together while I worked on the center, but there’s still a lot more to do on it.
I still need to cut out and attach the borders for the guild exchange quilt, hoping to get that done this week as well. I have 2-3 weeks to have it finished, but with the holiday weekend I don’t see any reason it won’t be ready. Â Off to work on hexies!
Since I had the quilt on our bed, even though it is going to be used on the bed in the trailer, I decided my new quilt model needed a pic on it. Â She’s now 4 months old and such a joy in our lives! Such a happy baby!! Hope to start posting more often now that I’m getting a little more free time – not much, but I am getting to work on the sewing machine a little more lately!
