Hexagons

Well, so much for no new projects.

I've started cutting a jelly roll into hexagons to do a grandmother's flower garden as a hand piecing project. I have been resisting doing this for a couple of months. I had bought a package of templates specifically for jelly rolls some time ago.

I've got about 80 more to cut - there will be 560 in total. Ow. I am feeling it in my wrist and back. The colours are interesting. It's an American Jane set of fabrics - sort of limey green, peach, red, blues, pinks. I think the end result may be very pretty. A couple of the strips and polka dots, don't really lend themselves to GFG, but I don't care. I'm going to use them anyways.

The next thing will be to choose the colour sets. Each Jelly Roll strip produced 14 hexes. This will make two flowers and two centres. A total of 80 flowers. I think the final result will be a large lap quilt. The test flower ended up about 6 1/2" across.

Onward ever onward

It's starting to get cold at night so I'll soon start lap quilting a larger project so I have something to snuggle up in. I have a magic tile quilt that has 3 of the 12 tile blocks quilted, but was set aside when the weather got hot. I'll start working on that at home once I get the last Parrot block quilted and until I get the border for the Parrot figured out.

I figure (if all goes as planned) I'll have the last of the parrot blocks quilted this week. That will leave me without a take-along project for when I go to IPM in Earlton next weekend. I'll have to figure something out for in the hotel at night and during the train ride.

I do have the Birthday blocks that need to be sorted and pulled into a quilt. I just haven't figured out how I want to set them so that I can deal with the varieties in size. I don't really want to do the same as the Parrot quilt. I was thinking an Attic Window's approach, but then there is the problem of varieties in size - how do I make them match up? and also what colours do I use for the windows? And the backing? I'm not exactly ready to tackle that one yet, although I would like to get it done.

The guild is doing the block exchange with focus fabric again. This time I've decided not to participate - my attendance is not exactly regular due to work and the resulting set of blocks is a pain in the ass to deal with as they are all different sizes and fabrics (polycottons = yuck!), not the 12 " finished and 100% cotton like they are supposed to be.

The light at the end of the tunnel....

I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with the parrot quilt. I started quilting the final block QAYG today.

Unfortunately I am wondering if there is a train attached. I haven't quite figured out how to handle the border part. That could be interesting or nasty. I haven't decided which. I also haven't decided quite what Iam going to do for the border yet either. Decisions, decisions.

Fall Fair results

I did well at the fair. The patchwork scottie dog won a second with a note that it was very unique. The hand-pieced, hand-quilted irish chain crib quilt won a second. My catapillar wool bulky knit sweater also won a second, so all in all, I did very well.

not much happening...

I'm halfway through block 11 of the Parrot quilt - haven't had a lot of time to quilt.

Put the hand-pieced irish chain crib quilt in the fair, along with the hand pieced scotty dog stuffed toy and a bulky knit sweater. I'll find out saturday how they did.

OK - so much for not starting anything new. I did a small table topper/centerpiece. It's 5 16-patch blocks with setting triangles. The 16-patches are yellows, pinks, greens and blues mostly. I'm using pink as binding. I finished piecing it yesterday, and for a change, basted and machine quilted it. It's rare that I machine quilt anything.

This morning I sewed the binding on. I just have the hand-stitching of the binding to finish and it's done.

It's a new project, but it's been very satisfying to whip something together - a great feeling of accomplishment. I found some beautiful fall FQ yesterday and will make another of these toppers in fall colours at some point in the near future.

I basted another parrot block yesterday. The 10th one is almost finished quilting - just a little bit around the border and it's done. I hope to finish it at lunch time.

I'm going camping for the long weekend. I'll take the 11th parrot block and the table topper to hand-stitch the binding on.

I'm back

Having spent the better part of the last two weeks in the city and working, I am now back. I have worked 4o hours overtime in the last two weeks. So when I finally got home/slowed down I have not gotten much done.

While away, I did finish the quilting on 2 of the qayg Parrot blocks. I am working on yet another and have 2 more to baste and then the blocks for that quilt is done.

My leaders/enders 9-patch has been pulled together into a crib-sized flimsy.

And on a whim, I pulled a bunch of 2" squares together to make a quick (maybe) table topper.