Hexagon round up and an awesome new find

Look at this awesome little score of mine! can you believe it was given to me! GIVEN I tell you. Such a sweet little piece of retro heaven. I quite literally got goosebumps when I found out it would be mine and I knew straight away what was going to live in there.

 Sewing things of course, this way I get to disappoint a whole new generation of kiddies who will be expecting baked goodies.

 A closer look at my many many hundreds of squares cut and ready to fold.

 The bottom container all full of bits and pieces. Including this huge stack of papers...

 So picture this, its a rare, rare moment, the kids are clearly settled in well to playing lego, or colouring in or otherwise engaged. Your heart is racing - its time to actually sit down and relax, pick up the sewing and find some peace... you are stitching away, one hexie, two, then three... by George you have your groove on, this quilt is going to be yours in no time! Then.. then... you go to reach for another hexie, none there... none! that can't be, off to the main stash, none there. Sigh! off to cut paper hexies, fabric squares and get out the bostic. Then it goes VERY wrong, the kids notice your increased movement. Clearly if you have the inclination to move from one room to another, you also want to read a book, get a milk, play a guessing game, and watch a rendition of 'Old MacDonald'... Sigh, moment gone.

This really happens to us Mumma quilters, and happened to me too many times, this quilt was never going to get done, so I put my foot down... sweet talked my own mother to help (oh the irony there) me. She is doing some very cute things with paper over at Huckleberry Blue. I enlisted her machine to cease cutting pretties and to cut some boring plain white hexagons for me... ohhh so much quicker than cutting them out one at a time, but hand, for hours, like I was. I also cut out every square needed to complete to quilt ( I think) and have begun a massively, insanely, exhausting (and not to mention boring) quest of gluing 500+ hexagons.

Thought I might share my 'to go' bag for this quilt.

The bag was gifted to me some time ago. I still love it. Perfect size and so beautifully made - from Buttontree Lane
The thread is never a particular brand, just what ever suits me on the day I am at the fabric store. I do however always go with a cream, almost pale yellow colour.

The needle always changes too, sometimes I prefer bigger, other times smaller, so I carry a mixture. I keep them in a little container that came inside a kiddie chocolate with a toy in it - works perfect!
The scissors are old as the hills and were a hand-me-down from god knows who
The thimble was made by my dear friend Carly (from over at Dreaming of a Garden Utopia) other half.
The wax is not proper thread wax, just a candle. Really, I prefer this, its nice and soft this wax, and smells like tangerine, YUMMO.
The project is mostly kept in my  pastry tin, but I count out just what I need for each block and put it into my to go bag, sometimes 2 or 3 blocks - depending on the time I will be away for.

Cast on Marathon

 What does one do the  week after finishing Uni (FOREVER) cast on of course.



I managed to find some really nice Noro equivalent  (well close enough to it) and decided to make another Lizzy. I just love this pattern, it is just lovely to knit, and a smidge bit addictive, that and my original Lizzy (here) seems to have been taken over by the rest of the family :P almost 1 strip down, and I should be able to make 6... should....

 Also cast on a cardi for me. Sorry for the dodgy photo, photos taken by monitor light only do tend have a bit of noise :P this is being knitted from some yarn I scored really cheap at my local spotlight, no idea what it is, but it seems to be nice enough.....

I am knitting top down, raglan style, with really big sleeves and a nice big wrap around cardi. There isn't a lot to share at the moment. I have knitted down to the arms, knitted one arm and half way though the second.

Wordless Wednesday

Fifty Flower Friday

So I haven't partaken in the OFW that so many are, that's because I am just too unreliable, so here is fifty instead! This is a total of 350 hexies sewn together. At first I felt I had made HUGE progress, that's over half of the 80 centre flowers done! woot!... wait, I calculated how many hexies all up will be in this quilt.... over 2500. Perhaps 350 isn't impressive after all. I really cant wait to finish the last 30 though, they are all basted ready to go, then it is on to 12 around the outside in a solid colour, and then 8 white ones so they are ready to join together. after finishing a flower with 7 hexies, 20 will feel like slow going. I am hoping my motivation to slog through this will be because at this stage I will be able to lay the pieces out and begin to see my quilt !!

So I begin my hexie journey

Remember HERE when I share with you all one lonesome little Hexie?
Remember when I said I wasn't sure if I would make any more??
Obviously I decided I would :)
I bought up a layer cake of Moda Summer House from Need it, Want it, Quilt (Totally recommend Them btw) and plan to make 80 flowers from it, I will surround each of those flowers with a coordinating solid, then white between them all before I assemble it and each flower has a soft yellow centre.

That said I have no intention of rushing this. This is a 'when I feel like it' project. Not being known for my love of hand stitching I don't want to push myself, and yunno.... without the pressure, I think I actually might like this hand piecing gig.... stay tuned, but not too closely, this may take a while...

One flower, JUST one flower?

So I did it, I contacted my local guild. I am going along this coming Saturday to meet them all. I am so looking forward to it. The lady I conversed with via email was super helpful and said that most ladies will bring some hand stitching or some knitting along.

With that in mind I couldn't help but notice the masses of hexie flowers around, every second blog I look at is taunting me with them, yes taunting. I have always had a love for these. I did attempt to make them years ago, but alas my accuracy back then was less than lax and they were horrible to sew and horrible to look at and I haven't tried one since... well until now. Of course hexies would make a GREAT carry along stitching project to my guild meetings. Heres the thing though, do I want to commit to it? I cut the templates from paper by hand, then the fabric and did it the old fashion way and honestly while the flower was so quick, the prep was tediously annoying , must plumb the depths of the web looking for better (read faster options)

So as I sat there with my almost finished flower I hesitated before putting that last petal on. once that petal is done I will know... am I making a hexie flower or a hexie quilt? I am pretty sure it is a quilt :D I might have to spend some time cutting out and building a stash of the papers and consider how I can make the basting go quicker (if ever you have contemplated commenting, now is it baby! HELP).


I think the key here is to not stress it. I dont plan on having it done this week or year, I am entering into this knowing it is going to be a 'when I feel like it' long term project. If I never get it done, although that isnt my aim!, I have something to hand my daughter.


So there we go, a long term hand pieced quilt commitment by me, the queen on the instant gratification and believer that EVERYTHING can be machine stitched!

In other news I have a little lap quilt that I should have finished in the next few days to share and I have a few (8) 36 patch blocks to share too.....

Harvest

Harvest, because the colours remind me of the wheat crops and pale blue skies at harvest. Needless to say, I am loving the colours.

It was 26 degrees on Friday

It is 16 today, and certainly less than that now!

I love the idea of winter, of cracking wood fires, comfy lounges and many hours spent under a blanket knitting away. Sadly that doesn't happen here. No wood fire here, we have forgone the beautiful flicker, the ambiance and that warm that seems to travel to the bone like no other form of heating, for the convenient and cheap natural gas heater, and my knitting is not done on a big comfy arm chair, heck I don't think we would even fit one in, instead it happens on a office chair made from a converted Monza rally chair while I read long and laborious chapters of textbooks.

Somehow, I still love that coziness of winter. It seems that when the heater comes out, so too does the knitting. I cast on a little something today. I am free-styling this baby so it may never see completion, but I am feeling positive.

Oh and this wool is just DEE-vine. I just love garter stitch when it is knit with a lovely wool like this one,

There are 2 little people in this house

And they just got one hell of a frowning for THIS.... there are 5 separate balls of wool, 3 socks and what I would expect will be hours of untangling in this mess.

OHHH yeah!!!

I have not knit a stitch in months... untill last night... ohh those needles felt good in my hand and I forgot how much my heart sings when I see that project grow...

So Last night I picked up Ginny. She has been left in a incomplete state for some time, during which Uni has ruled all my non family time... I need to make room for my textiles too... for my mental health you know!
so here is Ginny. JUST shy of 50%

here comes another commitment

In 2002 I trained in acrylic nail application. I worked in a salon and then from home, but eventually with a little one under foot it became too much and I finished up. I don't think I have done a set of nails in, ohhhhhh, 3 or 4 years! until my brother's girlfriend insisted I do a set for her. Boy'o'boy I forgot just how much I enjoyed it. So with some prompting from those around me, and with quite a bit of interest from people about becoming a client, I am starting up again.

Sooo.... here goes again, from next week I will be working from home as a Nail Tech. I am quite excited about it. I really enjoy doing it. Times will be flexible and heaven knows the money won't go astray....

Perfect Points.

Perfect points really are the (dare I say it?) single most important element in a 'good' quilt.

I was working on a quilt today. Now this quilt is by no means my normal 'style'. It is very reminiscent of the 1930's quilting era. In fact the design is very similar to the "Shadow and Sunshine" design that was so loved in the '30's. The colours are not really my 'thing' either, they are not '30's repros but they do have that '30's feel to them. They are small prints, floral an the like... very '30's. So while I worked on this quilt who's design and fabric palette was not appealing to me... it made me smile. why? because perfect points give me inner peace!

Thinking about why I was so happy every time I opened out another freshly sewn seam, it was obvious. A quilt isn't made wonderful by using hideously expensive designer fabric, a beautiful piece of fabric is one that makes your heart sing and when you know it just has to come home and live with you. It doesn't matter who's name is on the selvage, we cut that bit off! A quilt isn't made wonderful by the expensive pattern, or by the intricate pattern. It wont matter if your quilt has thousands of minuscule pieces, not if they don't have perfect points! the simplest designs when pieced with perfection will outshine an uber expensive, million piece quilt if it is poorly pieced.

So this is why I smile when I open seams on this quilt. Not because of the expensive fabrics, because they aren't. They are run-of-the-mill, Spotlight quilt section cottons, but the person receiving this quilt will love them. I don't smile because I am working on a piece that is a triumph of patience... but because the simple, humble quilt I am making, I am making well.

Now I don't claim to be a master quilter.... not by a long shot.... But I am very particular about precision in quilting because this can make or break them. Some may call me OCD about this, and they are probably right, I don't care.. When I say perfect, I like perfect. I accept that there will be the odd seam that may be a few threads of the fabric out. I will allow these to exist, but with hesitance and annoyance. anything beyond that, and I am talking about a full stitch of your machine, so say 2mms out, and it is time to find the seam ripper. So, over 6 square metres in a queen size quilt, and I am going to stress about 2mms... YES. Yes I am. It all contributes to the final effect, and that 2mms here.. there... it adds up. It adds up to a sloppy and haphazard looking quilt, certainly not what your hours of work aims to achieve.

In short if you are going to do it people, do it well. It will make you smile. It will be your inner peace, and then you will realise that perfect points are chicken soup for the quilters soul.

ahhh nice....

Hmmm... not so nice..... Seam ripper, Stat!

hmmm whats she up to now?

hmmm.. yes just what a person needs at the assessment end of the uni term... a distraction.....
This is just a first rough draft idea for my next project, which will enable an potential new hobby.

Who knows what it is?

Woolly update

So how is my Harry Potter blanket coming along?6!!!! squares are done. I am quite happy with how they are coming along... still contemplating how to border these... In black for sure, but not quite sure on the logistics :D

and I am about 40% into suare number 7
Hoping to get to 60% soon!

and I am having a go with some crochet...

I actually have 6 squares done now. It looks good IMO. Will give better photos soon. I think I have enough yarn (Cleckheaton, Vintage Hues) to do 12 squares, but hope to track down more to make it a little bigger then that. I might have to scour Rav for someone selling some, I don't think it is in production any more...


in other news, I am hoping to have a new obsession soon.... pictures to come

The Quilt Top

Here is the quilt top for Bryn's bed, complete and ready for quilting.... I am still not Entirely happy with it... But Bryn loves it. so that is the main thing.

harry has friends....

This is a public announcement...

.... That I currently have no knitting project on the needles so this is the time to finish my Vivian... so..

" I solemnly swear that (who are the nerds who finished this sentence with "I am up to no good"?) that I will not knit a single stitch on any project besides my Vivian until it is complete and finished to the point of wearing"

this is a big call for me... I will dig vivi out tonight... and share where I am up to... I cant actually remember....

40 blocks..

... all done and dusted...

I made 40 cos thats how many diferent prints came in the charm pack and jelly roll...

the quilt will only need 20 something...

here is a random 16

I will put black sashing between each block with coloured corner stones... the border is still under mental creation....

A task for tonight

Picking fabric for little boy outfits is tricky. 2 outfits, twice as tricky, but with some luck after I have made the 2 party outfits tonight, Bryn will be able to pick 1 to wear to his party tomorrow, I am putting my bets on the 'pirate' one... but we will see

well hello Harry

Just a quickie tonight. I just want to share this picture with you of a current project. Inspiration hit at a most fortuate time.... I had just cast off the last strip of my Lizard ridge (pictures soon)

I am loving this...

And I best show you what it will be....

can you see it forming yet?