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.

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.....