Design Wall Monday - 4/11/16

Salt & Pepper blocks completed in MD

I'm baaaaaacccckkkkk!

Twisted hexie blocks and extra black centers completed in MD

Didja miss me?

"house" blocks completed in MD for hexie club birthday swap

As you may recall, I disappeared from the blog for a week of laziness after a long Easter weekend to visit my uncle in Baltimore and then for a 2nd week after being sick. I may have disappeared from the blog but I was still working on projects in the background.

pieced hexie blocks for Mickey Depre's 2016-17 sampler.
These were machine sewn before the trip. During the trip I trimmed seam allowances and basted them.

I suppose your first question is what happened to my March quilt lab clean up project. Since I was out of town, sick and I'm now getting ready to go out of town not just once but three times, it's been placed on hold or maybe delayed is a better word.

I've been trying to catch up on my i-spy blocks since vacation.
This pile of 30 blocks has the wonky black-on-black borders attached.
They were later trimmed down to 6.75" square - a boring job if ever there was one :(

 Let's just say that I'm still working on cleaning the lab but it's taking longer than expected since life has gotten in the way. I'm not surprised. Are you? I highly doubt that it will be finished in the next month or 2 due to a big project so lets just call it a longer term (summer?) project.

more twisted and pieced blocks completed at home

I expect there will be hexie finishes in the next month and there are also new projects so there will be plenty to entertain you in my ongoing hexie UFO saga....

All but 4 of the I-spy blocks are completed. I've got them layed out sorted by left
 /right angles and by which BOB fabric so I can keep it balanced.
I know - it's a little OCD.
I'll be at several quilt stores this weekend to look for more hexie fabrics and then
I'll start to sew them together. I have 90 hexie fabrics as of today!!!
Some are the same pattern but in different colors - there are prob 80 different patterns.

Back to the Design Wall...

I sell name badge holders at one of my conferences -- this is batch #1.
This is a new (requested!) pattern since the girls wanted zippered compartments.
I hope they like them...

We traveled to Baltimore, Maryland for a long Easter weekend and then stopped in Intercourse, PA on the way home. That meant that I had 10 hours travel time for stitching as well as tv time at my uncle's house. I was quite productive, if I say so myself. Of course, I still packed 3 times too much (this is what happens when the supplies take up so little space) but it was nice to switch projects now and then.

I've started to make some of the blue pieced hexies for Mickey's pieced sampler

Since returning home, I've finished some of the projects started on the road trip and worked on others as well. I have not one but 2 conferences this weekend so there will be plenty of stitching time - I just need to pack enough to keep my fingers busy which helps me concentrate in the classes better.

I finished the left card trick block and made a second.
I will make at least 2 more and then assess what to add for the proper doll quilt size.

I had originally intended to lay them out with the teal always in the upper left but I layed one of them
 down backwards and I'm kinda liking what will become a teal 'X' and a purple 'O''. 

Quilt Lab clean up post #6

Project background: I'm spending the month of March cleaning up my quilt lab and blogging about all my hexie UFOs along the way...

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Today's post is short and sweet!

This is one of 2 bookcases flanking the double windows in my quilt lab and I consider it hexie central even tho there is non-hexie stuff mixed in.

I found a few random orphan type blocks but I chose not to photograph them as a hexie here and there didn't add up to much.

I did work on updating my hexie paper inventory. A few of the un-highlighted items are in project boxes and, obviously, there are a few things that need to be added to the list.

I'm not sure I like the Ball jars here instead of the bigger biscuit jars. This might get changed again later as Dad and I are building a shelf over the windows for one set of jars or the other. 

Top shelf is antique jars of my of-used papers, tiny basket of hole punches for punching papers, biscuit jar with birthday shapes for hexie club, round purple/orange zipper bag with my pieced hexie templates and a stack of Fiskars hexie punches. The bird bath pedestal hold my collection of antique thimbles that I use to count by tens when cutting large numbers of quilt pieces.

Second shelf is mini drawers of papers and acrylic templates sorted by size, tins of projects I've already shared and hexie books.

The third shelf is my quilting book collection and several binders of print outs on various topics. I need to cull some of the books but that can wait for another day.

There are 2 more shelves to this case but they are for rubber stamping and tatting supplies and can also wait for another day...

Quilt Lab clean up post #5

Project background: I'm spending the month of March cleaning up my quilt lab and blogging about all my hexie UFOs along the way...

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Today's post deals with my design wall. It's meant to be a place to design quilts, of course,  but sometimes it becomes more of an inspiration board. I'm not sure which I prefer. Any really large quilt I'm working on has to be laid out on the floor but it's definitely nice to have that vertical space to "eye" my smaller projects for balance, etc.

You are probably questioning the deviled egg fabric - I guess it's my signature dish to some degree. I have several store bought books and many more recipes saved on Pinterest or in a notebook. I bet I have almost 200 recipes! It was a sure thing to buy the fabric - now I just need a pattern. I'll probably incorporate the colors more than the egg shape but I know something will come to me!

The first hexie project I put away were these 1.5" diamonds. These were from the 2014-15 birthday swap in our hexie club. I've been trying to come up with something to make them into but nothing has grabbed me yet so back into the baggie they go until inspiration hits.

These hexies are from The New Hexagon. I had picked out these solids to go with a fab border fabric but I found the solids boring (no fussy cutting) and they just hung around. I've now put these in the orphan box and I'll put the fabrics in the general stash.

Orange star was from a class I took in Houston. The pieced fabric was pressed onto freezer paper.
The rosette is supposed to have a snowman face in the center.
The diamond was an extra from "Obsession" - someday it will be the label on the back.

These are some random bits that have also been moved to the orphan box.

This was an adorable fabric that I couldn't resist because our LQS mascot is an owl. Unfortunately I didn't plan any more beyond this hexagon and I don't have much left of that purple. This has gone into the waiting for inspiration pile.

Photo taken in the dark so you can see it glow.
I often forget it glows until the lights are turned off.

The center of this star was a sample of pieced hexies for hexie club. The background fabric glows in the dark!! It's also gone into the waiting for inspiration pile - I'm sure some day it will become a doll cat bed quilt.

And here is the final design wall - I left 4 license plates from Row-by-Row hops, an adorable cat fabric and the hexie tree skirt pieces.

Unfortunately, I hate it. It's so open and WHITE. I spent 14 years in white apartments and large expanses of white drives me craycray. I prefer COLOR!!!!

The giraffe themed doll quilt has come down so I can finish it and I've put up some Seminole piecing strips but I'm sure some other projects are going to go up so I can figure out what to do with them. I just can't seem to focus with all this empty space.

Quilt Lab clean up post #4

Project background: I'm spending the month of March cleaning up my quilt lab and blogging about all my hexie UFOs along the way...

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And we continue today with the curio cabinet - storage central for most of my hexie UFOs.

First thing I did this morning was put those ferris wheel fabrics into the put-away pile. Having freed up a large box I moved the tree skirt project from 2 small boxes into the empty box which then gave me 2 small boxes for some of the projects I found today.

I bought a new big box for the top of the curio and moved the bits of my The New Hexagon Millifiori into it - emptying a basket from the cutting table. I've got the monthly papers in here as well as some fabrics I mean to use for a couple of the monthly blocks. I also need to print out all the monthly directions since I don't know how long Katja will leave them on her website.

 This is a new project - I'm calling it Pyramids since it reminds me of my 1,000 pyramids machine sewn quilt. I've cut out some fabric squares to take to conference and made 2 demo triangles to make sure it will work. The papers in the layout  represent the neutral fabrics that will alternate with the colors. Baggie on the right is punched 1/2" hexies from the magazine subscription inserts (I think I showed that pile of inserts back on post #1).

This is Opposites - another new project in dark purple and light gray.  I have a bunch of the fabrics cut and stored in the tin for conference.

This was a basket of a lot of little project bits or dreams. See below - I've pretty much worked them into the general stash or other storage bins.

This is actually a fab orange dark gray batiks. I cut out more diamonds and clearly had a plan for them but never wrote down the plan so I guess I'll make something up. I did find a bit more of the fabrics in a pile so I've put this all together so I can formulate a plan.

Most of these fabrics are from the scrap bag called "Pop Rocks" (from one of the quilt stores). It was easy to name this one! I couldn't find the picture of this project right off but it looks like a field of tulips to me. I've had these cut for a long time but no stitching yet - seems like another good/easy project for travelling.

This project was really to show that you can use EPP to do standard machine style blocks. The plan was to make 4 card trick blocks and border it with the tea post fabric. Of course I started this before I really got into making hexies so my seam allowance is rather small and I've been having trouble keeping the papers in while I work. The work looks fine, I just need to deal with the small pieces, which is annoying.

These green 1" hexies are from a fabric swap we did in our hexie club. I (re)designed a Christmas tree banner that we could all make. I think only one person has finished hers. I brought the small bag with the last dozen fabric squares to work and I got started basting them during lunch.

This was a project I designed for our hexie club. I stitched the 6 jewels together into a rosette and after sandwiching them together, embroidered candy heart phrases on them for a mug rug. I've had the other fabrics cut to make more but never got to it cuz I have this thing against pink. Don't ask! I've now put the fabrics back into the stash and moved the cut pieces into a smaller bag so that I might forget them again or just get them make into something...

My office building was built in the early 1900s and still has the original hexie tile floor in the bathroom. I am replicating the tile pattern in nice bright colors! Again, I have a diagram so I can track what else needs to be done. It looks like I need to finish 2 diamonds and then the background to square it all off. I don't appear to have much more of the orange or the purple so I'll need to find some other fabrics for the tile border.

This project started with 4 fat quarters and a desire to see just what I could do with it. I was very much into pieced hexies at the time but stalled out cuz this has no finished purpose. Well, lo and behold, it will fit the doll cat bed so now that it has a purpose I best get back to it since I won't need many more hexies to complete it.

And lastly for today is a pic of the bottom shelf of the curio cabinet. There are a few non-hexie items in the baskets and the pile of fabric on the left is "bundles" that I thought would work nice together for future hexie projects. Enough! I never start by looking at the pile when I am thinking new projects so I am going to make 90% of the pile disappear. Not sure what I'll put on this shelf instead but I **DO** know it will be hexie related. When I am done, I want this entire cabinet just for hexies.

 You'll be happy to know that this concludes the vast majority of my hexie projects since they were mostly in the cabinet. I still have a lot to clean in the rest of the room, where I'll find stray projects or project parts. There is also my collection of hexie papers and books. In other words, don't worry as there is plenty for me to do the rest of this month...and maybe beyond...

I just got a coupon for Dollar General that I can use for storage boxes this Saturday if I decide to go that route...

See ya tomorrow for Feline Friday - I don't think I'll show a single hexie to give ya'll a break!

Quilt Lab clean up post #3

Project background: I'm spending the month of March cleaning up my quilt lab and blogging about all my hexie UFOs along the way...

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And we continue today with the curio cabinet - home to most of my hexie UFOs.

This is my hexie puzzle project. The only fabric I purchased was the cream for the background. Everything else is scraps. Some were mine and some were from friends. Some were fussy cut and some were not. 

Nothing exciting in this box - just cream hexies...

Unfortunately I am at a serious standstill on this project. I had intended to make a circular quilt to put over the top of my great aunts small pedestal table so that the pretty feet would still show. I was having trouble getting a round shape so I was going to make it into an oval. You can see 2 opposite corners (top right/bottom left) are not the full star and that was where I had started to round it off. I became thoroughly frustrated and set it aside for something easier and here is still sits, waiting for inspiration. Ughghgh.

Hard to tell from the photo but this is probably arm's width wide.
 I just needs a new purpose so I can continue working on it.

This next box is a someday project using the Ferris Wheel pattern, shown below. I've spent so much time trying to arrange the chosen fabrics to fit the 3 shapes in this pattern that I've been thinking for the past 3 days that maybe the fabrics should just be put back into general circulation and some day the "right" fabrics will pop up in front of me and then I can start the project. I think when I get home tonight I'll be emptying this box and finding something else to put in it!!

I think this selection started with the 2 feathery FQs at the top right.
 I LIKE the fabrics, I just can't make them fit in to the 3 shapes of this pattern. 

This is called Ferris Wheel - it's just 1.5" hexies, squares and equilateral triangles.
I've seen lots of fabric placement ideas online but none of them really grab me.
Some day, I'll find the 'one' and get this project started.

This kit was purchased with several Christmas gift certificates an unspecified number of years ago. When it grows up it will be a tree skirt. I mean every hexie-ologist should have at least one hexie tree skirt, right??!!

This is the left over fabric and papers after basting all the diamonds.
I would really like to put them back in the stash to clear a box but I'm afraid
if there are extra papers that maybe I can't count...

Here you can see the box that has been in the curio,
the basket of basted diamonds that sits on my cutting table
(don't ask about the panic when those diamonds were not where I thought they were)
and the pieces that are already stitched together.

This pattern needs to have some thought put into placement so the fabric usage is balanced.
At some point I decided it had to be a stay at home project for that reason but
I'm finding that I don't work on it at home so I'll have to come up with another plan.

Whooahhhh - moved the basted diamonds into an empty box, instead of the basket = more
counter top space. But now if I empty the bigger ferris wheel box I can combine these into the
one box, making room for 2 projects.

And lastly for today is this table runner that is going to be made out of Cherrywood hand dyes. I'm flinching cuz I bought this FQ bundle in Houston in 2011. The fabrics are so soft, I just want to pet them instead of stitch them. Check this link for the rainbow runner that I am going to formulate with these hexies.

Check back tomorrow for more photos from the curio cabinet...

Quilt Lab clean up post #2

Project background: I'm spending the month of March cleaning up my quilt lab and blogging about all my hexie UFOs along the way...

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On Sunday I started cleaning up/out the Curio Cabinet. My SIL has an extensive collection of Precious Memories figurines and when she outgrew the cabinet my Dad made her a new one and I was offered the old one.

I didn't know what I was gonna do with it at first so we placed it in the quilt lab (only free corner) until I decided. I very quickly decided it could stay there to house UFOs and then it has gradually morphed into housing hexie UFOs.

Most of the projects are stored in plastic boxes. I am torn about buying more boxes since I hope to finish projects leaving empty boxes but I know myself and if there's a box I can fill it with something. With that said, I am at least buying one more box for the top of the cabinet as I have another large/long-term project I need a box for.


The top most box houses my "Salt & Pepper" project. After my cat, Pepper, died, I was moping around Pinterest and kept coming across the same pattern in different variations. I took it as a sign that I was meant to make that project. I can't quite remember how I picked the colors but it's been fun looking for just the right fabrics. Each star has a white-on-black center surrounded by black-on-white fussy cut jewels surrounded by burnt orange diamonds. The various diamonds will become 'baby blocks' when it's all stitched together. I am trying to use the black-on-white fabrics just once in the project but the others can be used more than once. I'm at a point where I have lotsa shapes cut already so I want to stitch them before I find any more fabrics or do any more fussy cutting.

fussy cut diamonds and jewels on the right
houndstooth for binding and inspiration "batik" on the left

15 finished star blocks and the Russel Stover tin they are stored in

The second box on the top is for my Patchwork of the Crosses (POTC) project. I found this fantastic red paisley that will be in every block and then I found the perfect red that will be the sashing. The cream blocks you see on each block is part of the sashing as well.

This box houses the bulk of the red and paisley fabrics, precut beige sashing pieces to stitch
 with thread ends and any other fabrics I think might work for future blocks.
You'll also see the 2 honeycombs I found on the cutting mat.

Only 4 finished blocks so far - this project isn't much of a priority at the moment altho I adore the fussy cutting.
The center will have more of the beige/red sashing fabrics and then a square of 4 fussy cut fabrics in the center.

Almost as soon as I became addicted to hexies have I wanted to make this tumbler pattern using 2 different size tumblers. I didn't have fabrics in mind - just the pattern. That was until I went to Gettysburg, PA with my family and we stopped at a "costume" shop that sold scraps of the civil war fabrics they used to make period dresses. I purchased 2 bags, at maybe $5 each, and was well on my way to another project. I purchased the purple for the large tumblers at my LQS. I started to cut some of the small tumblers cuz I wanted to get my hands into the fabrics but it's not a priority project at the moment so the fabric was just pushed into the box. I do think it will be a nice travel project since I'll need quite a variety of the small tumblers stitched before I can start stitching anything together.

Fabrics in the box haven't been pressed or fussy cut yet. Once I've used the fabric it's folded flat and placed
in the baggy. Cut pieces wait for me in the choco box and basted pieces are in the ball jar.

The colors in the picture just aren't doing this project any justice - I think there will be a nice
contrast between the purple and the other fabrics. I've started by cutting 10 of each repro fabric.
The 1" tumblers are a little fussy to stitch but I'm sure I'll get in a groove and be happy with it. This
might have been a time where I should have bought the acrylic template with a 1/4"
instead of a 3/8" seam allowance.

This next pattern is called Rose Star online but it's become my 'owl' or 'camping' project. Owl because there is a fussy cut owl in the center of each block and camping cuz I only work on it while I am camping in the ADK mountains. No reason to ONLY work on it then but it's been a fun tradition. This project started with a FQ bundle of coordinated fabrics that I added to, giving me a dozen fabrics to work with. My goal is to keep making as many blocks as I can until all of the FQ bundle is gone.

I think there are 15 blocks done already.
You can see the cream batik that will hook all the blocks together. I found the extra cream
fabric in a separate box and moved it into the box with the rest of this project.
Don't worry, I filled that box with another project already!

The stripe will be the binding and I finished the owl fabric bolt so there is plenty for a backing.
You can also see there is a decent amount of the FQ bundle left to make more blocks.

Yes, I was OCD enough to make a chart so that all the fabrics are used equally.

I bought myself the papers for George Town Circleand then my boss gifted me the acrylic set for Christmas. Woohoo! I started with fussy cutting the asian border fabric and will add in other fabrics as I get a plan for this project. I'm girding my loins for stitching curves...

I enlarged the pattern so that I could make notes on fabric, shape, etc.
Several of the shapes are similar from round to round but a slightly different size - it's gonna
take some advance planning to make sure I put the pieces together correctly and nicely fussy cut.

I'm pretty sure that's enough for today...I'm overloaded from hanging my head in UFO guilt and you from reading and laughing and reading and and and...

Check back tomorrow for more pictures of way too many UFOs...