Eleven Stitches

Like Potato Chips

So I've fallen down a new obsessive hole.  Hexagons.

They're hand-pieced onto die-cut pieces of paper. These hexagons are 2 inches per side. When I first started quilting, I had no interest in hand-piecing.  I mean, a machine is so much faster!  But knitting has taught me patience (in many things!), and now I don't care how long it will take to make this quilt because I'm having fun along the way.

And also? They're quite addictive.

Some of you might think that I have a big yarn stash.  I'm not disagreeing with that at all.  But my fabric stash makes my yarn stash look like that ball of twine in everyone's junk drawer. So, my goal is to outfit every one of my 300 paper hexagons with a different fabric from my stash.  I'm not worried.  It will get done.

I think I'm close to the halfway point in cut hexagons (not yet sewn), and I haven't even breached my bookcase of fabric yet.  This is all from stuff lolling around on my sewing tables and floor. Maybe I'll have to order some more hexes and make a bigger quilt.

I'm taking a big stack with me to Rhode Island this weekend for our annual clambake. (I'm also hoping to get some major sleeve progress done on Betty.)  I'll be offline for three days -- my only time all year-- and I'll see you on the other side.  I hope you have a great weekend, holiday or otherwise!

Mini Quilt Monday

Have you heard of Mini Quilt Monday?  There's a pool on Flickr, and the quilts there are pretty cool!  I decided to get in on the fun.  This week's contribution was simple, as I am recovering from a weekend with houseguests.  (It was a great weekend, though.)

I realized that I have a lot of polka dot fabrics, and I decided to put them together into a little quilt.

Last week's contribution was a little bit out of necessity.  The only way I could give away that Solstice quilt was to have a small version of my own.

It's now gracing my sewing room wall, and making me cheery whenever I see it.

Happy Mini Quilt Monday!

Happy Solstice!

Today, the sun actually peeked out this afternoon in New Jersey.  It's been a rainy month so far.  I thought the timing was especially appropriate, as it was my friend Becky's wedding day! Another weekend, another wedding.  Which means, another quilt.

I started and finished this quilt in a week!  Yes, it was an intense quilting week :)  The colors and pattern were inspired by Becky. She's a very green, earth friendly sort of person.  She and her husband chose today to get married because it is the summer solstice. The suns in this quilt are paper pieced, and the leaves are machine appliqued. I used a new batting for this quilt as well.  It's 50% bamboo, 50% organic cotton.  It was very soft and easy to use, and I'm sure I'll be using it again soon.

I have to mention that David was a great helper in the photo shoot this morning.  We were waiting for the rain to stop in order to take pictures, but the ground was too wet to lay the quilt on the grass.  He did a great job holding up the quilt so high for long enough for me to get some pictures.

I had such a fun time making this quilt.  When I finished each block I taped it to my wall, and I think it was a great inspiration to keep going.

With the exception of the borders and backing, all the fabric came from my stash.  It was fun to use up a lot of my yellow, blue, green, and purple scraps.

We had a lovely time at the wedding today, and we wish Becky and Kevin the best.  I hope they get to enjoy this quilt together for a long time!

Kate's Quilt

Oh, hello.  I'm back from my blog break.  A few weeks ago I got a surprise (and welcome) promotion, and the excitement drove me offline for a while. But now school is out for the summer, and I've got some things to show you.

This past weekend, my lovely friend Kate got married! I was quite busy making a quilt for a wedding gift, and a dress to wear to the big event.  The dress still needs some photos, but here's the quilt!

Her wedding colors were hot pink and lime green, and she also happens to have a room in her house decorated in those colors and chocolate brown.  It's a great color combination, and it makes a fun quilt! (The colors are a little washed out in the sunshine, but in real life they're really bright.)

I admired Chawne's Blue Whimsy quilt top so much that I had to make a version of my own.  Since there is a lot of blank space, the quilt went together quickly, and I love the minimalist look.

I mainly used a new fabric I had bought for the backing, but I also pieced in some leftovers from the quilt top.  And the binding was those leftovers again pieced together.

This was a fun project to get me back into quilting again, and I hope the new bride and groom enjoy it in their home!

Knit, Sew, Quilt

That's what my plans were for this long weekend!  How did I do?  Well, let me show you.

I've made a lot of progress on Betty.  I just finished with the armhole shaping, and I'm about finished with the colorwork band.

At the movies (Star Trek!  Such a good movie.), I almost finished up my second Trekking sock.  All I had to do when I got home is knit the toe.

I feel pretty meh about this pair of socks.  I know there are a lot of people who really like Trekking, but I don't think I'm one of them.  I'll see if my feelings change once I start wearing these socks next fall.

In the sewing department, I finished up a dress.

This is Simplicity 4116, an out of print pattern that I really like. This is the second time I've used this pattern, and I really like how nicely it fits and how easy it sews up.

The cantaloupe-colored fabric is pretty simple, and I love the Peter Pan collar.  I added a little bit of topstitching in the hopes the facing won't shift around too much after it's washed.

I made my own bias tape to finish the armholes, and I added pockets to the dress.  I also appliqued on a flower!

And finally, I got started on a new quilt this weekend.  I've admired Chawne's Blue Whimsy quilt so much that I thought I'd try to make something similar.

I've got some bread rising for tonight's meal (and this week's lunches), and I have a few more hours of crafting to fit in before the work week comes.

Log Cabin Experiments

My very first quilt (of 2001 vintage) was a log cabin quilt.  I've been fond of that pattern ever since, and it's been fun to see it cropping up in the past couple of years.

I decided to start using scraps from all the clothes I've been making, and to put them into a quilt.  I wanted to do a log cabin, but I thought I'd experiment a little bit with the blocks this time around. 

First I did just a straight log cabin block, with inch-wide strips.

Then I did one that still has straight lines, but the strip widths are varied.

I tried a wonky block.

And I finally went back to the straight inch-wide strips block, with some strips pieced.

It's been so fun to use all of my sewing scraps!  I think I like the first and last blocks best-- I'm still a log cabin traditionalist I guess.  But I'll keep experimenting until I have enough blocks for a quilt.

The After School Quilt

The second quilt I had in our school auction was really quite awesome, I must say.  Has a good idea ever hit you when you take a break and finally relax?  Well, less than four hours into my spring break this year, I got an idea I was so excited about I wished I could actually get back to school and get started on it!

I have a lot of fabric scraps leftover from the time when I used to quilt a lot (and I quilted even more obsessively than I knit now!).  I was looking for a way to use them up.  I took some Steam-a-Seam fusible webbing, and I ironed the scraps onto one side of the sheet of fusible webbing, leaving the paper attached to the back side.

At school, my co-teachers and I cut the sheets of scraps up so they were individual pieces of fabric.  We then handed the children 6 inch squares of muslin and told them to cut out shapes from the fabric however they liked to decorate the square. They cut out shapes, pulled the paper off the back of the fusible webbing, and then we permanently ironed all of the pieces down.

The children really took to this project.  The medium was simple enough to understand, but there was so much room for creativity.  Even the older boys (who I was worried about because they can be quite macho) really enjoyed the project and made some really creative contributions.  After a very busy couple of weeks, with all but one child participating, and with many children making several squares, we had enough blocks for a 54" x 66" quilt. They were so proud of it, and I'm so happy with the result!

The quilt ended up going for $320 at the auction.  The other one went for $155.  Yay for quilts!

Eye Candy Friday

Well, I just talked about my art quilts, but I realized that the ones I've shown so far haven't been all that "arty".  Here's two of my favorites.

Me: A Work in Progress  54" x 66"

This my fingerprint.  I inked it, scanned it into a .bmp image, altered that to create a pattern, had the pattern printed out, and then made the quilt from that.  It's in my favorite colors, and I had plans for a more intricate quilting pattern on it that I have yet to do.  So it's a work in progress.  I like that.

My Zebras 25" x 61"

I'm really fascinated with black and white fabrics.  They all contain only two colors, yet they provide such a range of tones just by the thickness of their lines and the density of the pattern placement.  This is actually a gradation of black and white fabrics.... there are 12 of them all together.  It was almost as fun to make this quilt as it was to come up with the concept.

Eye Candy Friday

This is another quilt I made.  It's based off the nursery rhyme.  I had a lot of fun coming up with each of the squares! 

Happy Friday :)

Eye Candy Friday - Spinning in Circles

This is another quilt that now lives with someone else.  I actually have an in-progress picture of it as the background on my laptop, so I still get to see it a lot.  I'm wishing you all a happy Friday.