Fun with hexagons

I'm on a hexie kick!  I don't want to say too much about my partner for the scrappy mug rug swap and his/her likes and dislikes, but I can say, they indicated they like hexies (really, who doesn't!!)  I am also using them in my blocks for the 3x6 bee, so I figured I'll just keep going with it. 

A few things I've come to realize in my experimentation with basting these puppies:

1.  I thought I'd really like these teflon hexie shapes that I bought at Joanns, as recommended by a few tutorials I had found...but I must say, I'm not a huge fan!  What I'm finding is that because the template is so "fat" compared to paper, they are not pressing nice and crisp and clean.

2. Tonight, I tried to use paper, to make these I just created some hexagons in a Word document, and them printed them on cardstock so that they hold shape a little better than plain computer paper, and punched a hole in the center which helps to remove them when finished.  I'm finding that because the paper is so thin, my seams are alot cleaner (no showing stitches on the front side) and they press so nice and crisp and clean!

Here are my fabrics I selected to use for my mug rug

A little meadowsweet and some moda prints

 

I wasnt quite sure how this layout was going to go...so I just started piecing some hexies together, thinking that I would piece a vertical stripe of 2 rows of hexies, and then figuring it out from there...

This is what I have so far...

Sooo...what do you think??  I think I like it, I'm going to trim my "hexagon stripe" to the size of the linen background.  I'm worried its a little too simple?  Or is simple ok??  Ack, this is my first mug rug swap, so I want it to be good!  Perhaps I'll leave it for tonight and come back to it tommorow and see what I think, however comments and suggestions are always welcome!

Finished Disappearing 9 Patch

Thanks in part to a surprise snow day yesterday that closed our office and left me with a free day off (yippee!) I was able to finish up the Disappearing 9 Patch Quilt ahead of schedule. 

Here's a picture of the back, I found two yards of this lilac/purple-y color on the bottom of my stash of solids, and thought this was the perfect project to use it up!  Purple is really not a color that I am drawn to for some reason, and I dont have much purple in my fabric collection to begin with, so its a wonder I had this big of a piece of solid purple in the first place! 

I also pieced in some left over blocks from the front of the quilt with some white sashing to add some visual interest to the back.

Just some close-ups of the quilting.  I went with my favorite, stippling/meandering, I was tempted to try more of a loopy squiggle, but changed my mind at the last second.  Maybe next time. 

I do like it a lot more now that it is quilted and put together, I think we just needed some "time apart" to get to that point.

Again, this quilt is being donated to our local Heart Association chapter for the Annual Heart Gala.   Hopefully the recipient enjoys its snugglyness!

In addition to getting this quilt finished up yesterday, I had two THREE other bits of good quilting news come my way, first I discovered that there is a local Modern Quilt Guild in my area!  When it would pop in my head, I would check the website to see if there was a guild near me, and the closest one was always in Philly, on the other side of the state.  So imagine my surprise, when I checked the site and discovered that there was a Greensburg guild that was started in July 2010!!!  I immediatly submitted a request for membership, and am happy to report that there is a meeting scheduled for the end of this month.  I'm so so excited to meet some local modern quilters in my area to share in my quilting and fabric obsession!

By some miracle, I was accepted to participate in Doll Quilt Swap 10!!  When I heard that participants were being selected on a lottery basis, I basically counted myself out, because, well, I have terrible luck with those sort of things.  Imagine my surprise when I opened my email yesterday (my spam folder none the less) and found an acceptance letter!!  So so excited, cant wait to get my swap partner and get creating!

On a side note, Kati from From the Blue Chair tagged me to help spread the word about fabulous smaller blogs out there. It's just a little way to highlight those of us who are among the "little guys"—blogs with fewer than 300 followers. Here are a couple of my favorite "little guys" that you should check out. There are so many talented quilters out there. I love finding new people to follow.

Here are the rules:

1) Tell your readers who tagged you.

2) Add a link to their blog.

3) Award 3-5 bloggers who you think deserve this award.

Inform them and post directions to your blogspot. Please don't tag people who already have 300 followers. The goal of this award is to get more publicity to blogs that are good, but not so well known.



First up is Cindy from roseroomquilts, Cindy and I are both members of our local Modern Quilt Guild, so I will actually get to meet her in real life at the end of this month!  She has some great quilts in progress, be sure to check her out!

Next is Jolene From BlueElephantStitches, she is always working on something bright fun and pretty, stop by and say hello!

Finally, there is Dolly from Dolly's Home, she was one of my first "blogging friends" and is currently finishing up this fabulous zig zag quilt that has such amazing movement and color.

So go check out their blogs and maybe even stick around. I love following their work!

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I will be linking this post to Lit and Laundry's Finished for Friday, be sure to pop over and check out all the lovely finishes!

WIP Wednesday {1.12.2011}

I've come across Lee's blog over at Freshly Pieced and have discovered that she has a weekly WIP party on Wednesdays, how fun!  This is such a great way to see what others have in the works, and to share what you're working on as well. 

I have quite a few little projects floating around in my head, but for what I'm working on this week, It's my disappearing 9 patch charity quilt and the beginning stages of psiquilt's postage stamp quilt along.

My disappearing 9 patch is in its final stages, as I'm about half way done quilting we got hit with a good bit of snow last night, which resulted in a day off work, so I have finished the quilting and am on to the binding!  Yay for snow days! 

My second "WIP" isn't quite in progress yet, but I did finally receive my fabric I ordered for the postage stamp quilt along! 

I decided on It's a Hoot by Momo for Moda and a Bella Solid in snow.  These fabrics are so fresh, fun and bright, I cant wait to get sewing with these!  I've haven't decided 100% who this quilt will be for, or if it will be a keeper, but I'm leaning towards giving it to my cousin for her bridal shower, as she's getting married this summer.

I just love all the fabrics in this line, I'm having a tough time deciding which fabrics to order for the backing and binding!!

Happy WIP Wednesday, I'm off to enjoy my snowy day off down in my sewing room!  Head on over to Freshly Pieced and check out all the awesome WIPs!

December/January Bee Blocks

This weekends sewing goal was to get caught up on my quilting bee blocks, December just seemed to slip away from me, and I never got around to finishing up my blocks for the month

This block is for Lynne in the Solid block bee.  Lynne took mercy on the hecticness of December and requested a bright fun block in block design that she will be putting together for a fun bright quilt.

This block is for Natalie in the the Solid block bee for January.  This bee is really challenging my creativity, and I like it!  Her inspiration for these blocks was artist Carl Kleiner and his really cool paper art, here are the pics that Natalie shared with us to give some inspiration as to what she was looking for:

Natalie sent us some Kona Coffee for the background and sent some jelly roll strips to design the inside of our triangle.  I think my block goes along with the inspiration pieces, hope Natalie likes!

For December in the Simply Strings bee, Gwen requested Spiderweb blocks using the tutorial from Quilt It.  I'm excited to see what this will look like when all the blocks are laid out, as she requested that we use dark colored strips on one half of the triangle and light strips on the other half of the triangle when assembling.  It looks very cool!

And to end my quilting bee block bonanza this weekend, I wanted to decide on a block to make for the 1st quarter of the 3x6 bee.  When I received my Accuquilt Go! I immediately knew I wanted to get the hexagon die.  It finally came in the mail a few days ago, and I was thinking I wanted to give hand piecing hexagons a try, and incorporate them into my block for the 3x6 bee. 

I was very impressed with how nice and accurate my hexagons were when using my Accuquilt Go!  I've had less than stellar results with some of the dies, particularly the 5" square die, however I was able to cut 6 layers of fabric at a time and still have very accurate cuts with the hexagon die. 

I went to town string basting my red, white and black hexagons around plastic teflon hexagon shapes, and it went much quicker than anticipated.  I followed Julie's tutorial from jaybirdquilts for basting and sewing my hexies together.  In my head I was thinking of making the entire center of my block hand pieced hexagons with some sort of border, but when I realized how long it was taking just to piece the hexagons below, I decided on a flower layout and appliqued it onto white fabric.



I'm pleased with the outcome, this block is actually for Erika, as she requested red, black and white.  Hope she enjoys!  1 block down, 5 more to go. 

dissapearing 9 patch quilt top

Thanks to everyone input with the design of the blocks, the quilt top is complete!  I decided on layout "B".  I really liked the randomness of the block arrangement, and I liked how the different width sashing broke up the design and helps the eyes focus.

For some reason I'm kind of just "eh" about this. I think my favorite part is the layout of the blocks...and that all the fabrics came from my stash! I'm hoping that once I get the backing done and get it quilted I'll like it more, but for now, just "eh." It may also just be that I've kind of dragged my feet getting this top pieced together, so I'm getting tired of looking at the same thing on my design wall...

The finished quilt will be approximately 45 x 60, so a nice little lap/back of the couch quilt.

I'm going to stash this away for a few days and work on some bee blocks this weekend, and maybe when I pull it out again I'll be a little more inspired to put a back together and get it basted and quilted.

In news of other projects, I think I've found my next "big" quilt to work on...

Rachel from psiquilt is hosting a postage stamp quilt along, and it sounds like fun!  I've never made a postage stamp quilt, its on my "to make" list, so I figured why not!  You should definitly head over and check it out, I've ordered my jelly rolls of fabric and am ready to go!

 

Computer geek

I have seen these bloggy buttons all over, and decided I wanted to find out how to make one.  I am the bee mama for the Simply Strings Bee, and decided we needed a button!  It actually wasn't that hard, but I figured I'd post a little overview for anyone who may have also been wondering how these things work!

I found this website first, and then this website, and thirdly this website, which helped to clarify things...

First I found a picture on my computer that I wanted to use as a background, and then looked for free downloadable pictures of bees and saved it to my computer in my picture files.  I then used Paint (I'm sure that Photoshop would do this as well, and probably better!) and layered the 2 images together and saved my new image in my picture files.

I then used picnik, and cropped and resized my image to 125x125 and added some text and resaved the image as my final button design.  Its important that however your arrive at your final button layout, that the size is around 125x125.

Once your image is saved on your computer, you then need to publish the image to the internet (I just posted mine in a blog post). 

In order to get the button to publish with the text box below it so that others can copy your button easily, you need to go into your blog design page and "Add a gadget".  You need to select an HTML/JavaScript gadget.

Copy the formula halfway down the page from here into your HTML/JavaScript text box

Input the web address your button is linking to where the formula says YOUR WEB ADDRESS

Input your blog title (what words will show up when you mouseover the icon) where the formula says BLOG TITLE

Input the address of your image (click on the picture you have published in a blog post, and copy the web address in the browser) where the formula says IMAGE WEB ADDRESS.

Thats it!  Congratulations you have just created a button for your blog!

To sash, or not to sash...

Hello 2011!  My first quilt of the New Year is going to be a quilt I'm planning on donating to charity.  A friend of mine who I met through work is heavily involved in the American Heart Association, and asked if I would be willing to donate a quilt to auction off at their annual Heart Gala.  She is looking for something of a "couch quilt size" and I have complete design and color control.  I have had a disappearing 9 patch quilt on my mind for a while now, and thought what better time to put one together, however I can't decide on how I want the blocks laid out!  What do you think??

Option A.

No Sashing

Option B.

Small sashing between each square, and larger sashing to separate each 4 part block, in a random arrangement.

Option C.

Sashing the same as option B, however each 4 part block has a "cross" style arrangement

Option D.

No small sashing between each square, but sashing between each block.

I'm leaning toward option B or C...what is your favorite?