Hmm... What have we here? I'll let you guess. Here's the list of choices:
Broken Plate
Double Monkey Wrench
Fisherman's Reel
Hole in the Barn Door
Double T
Dragon's Head
Hens and Chickens
Churn Dash
Love Knot
Old Mill
Picture Frame
Puss in the Corner
Quail's Nest
Shoo Fly
Will check back later . . .
Making lots of progress on PINK Honeycomb Quilt, the third in a series of "hexagon quilt mania". I really can't believe how fast this one came together. My needle has been flying. These BIG flowers remind me of those decals from the 1960's, remember those? People would stick them on their cars and on walls and windows. This quilt definitely has that same happy vibe going on. It brings smiles to faces.
I've been making binding too and it's going to be awesome. This is what happens when you can't make up your mind which color or fabric to use for a binding. You choose them ALL! I love sewing on binding as much as I love hand-sewing hexagons together. It's the same sort of lovely, tidy stitching.
Ginger has been enjoying the daily process of watching this quilt, her quilt, grow and come to life and that has kept the wind in my sails. Yesterday, we were out in the garden and noticed something. The colors in her flower barrel this year. All random choices, brought home by others. And yet, remarkably familiar: Pink and Yellow!
Update:: A few people asked about the size of the template I used, so here's how I measured it. The illustration is not "actual size", rather representative.
Pictures of the finished quilt coming soon!
Hi everybody. Thanks for the quilt love for Honeycomb #2! It is now in the arms of its owner (Miss Grace) and receiving lots of hugs and inducing sweet dreams. . . .
HCQ #3 (in pink) is still in progress and coming along nicely. I can't wait to show you! But today, I've got another quilt for our "show and tell". This flannel four-patch went together pretty fast! Good thing too, because darling granddaughter's birthday is this week and it was a race to the finish line. Ginger helped me chain-piece the units together once we got the layout down and that helped speed things along. She's a happy stitcher behind the new "Magnolia" Janome and loves any excuse to use it.
It's all good. She's picking up speed and learning fast. Here's a little top she finished yesterday for her niece. Isn't this the sweetest? She made a pair of flannel PJ pants to go with it--the alphabet letters look much better on these don't ya think?
Anyway, back to the cuddle quilt. Some more pictures.
Here's a peek at the underside; once covered, never to be seen again. Since flannel is heavier than quilter's cotton, the seams were pressed open to reduce bulk at the intersections.
After the top was done, an eyelot ruffle was added around the edge before sewing the layers together pillow-style. I have miles of this lace on hand (bought in bulk from a store that was going out of business), so it finds its way into a lot of things and was exactly what this little quilt needed.
For the ties, I used some wonderful old embroidery cotton (from France) that I found at a thrift shop, and tied in where the blocks intersect. This is easy to do; if you need additonal info--tutorials here and here may be helpful.
The result is more like a comforter. All ready for a cuddle.
And of course, we must have a label.
This idea was wonderfully reinforced at the 'Sisters in Stitches' Quilt Show I attended last Saturday...but more about that later. In a future post. With pictures of some beautiful show quilts.
If you've been reading this blog for awhile, that bird may look familiar. It showed up first over here. My sample embroidery pieces often get turned into labels of some sort or another. This one was from the 2007 October Bonus Collection. (Had to consult my blog archives to find the original post.)
My-Oh-My how time does fly! Hard to believe this girl is five.
Things are looking rosy around here. Thanks so much for the color suggestions for the flannel quilt; I took them to heart and then went digging in my stash for something to replace the letter blocks with. Since I had already used a pale pink micro fiber fleece, I was looking for something a few shades lighter. But without scraps to cull from I had to go to Plan B: plunder yardage from my future sewing projects. Somewhat dangerous territory. Actually though, as it turns out, I only had to cut one six-inch strip from the end of two different pieces, which gave me enough to work with while still leaving plenty of fabric for making nightgowns and pajamas, which is basically what all these scraps were left-over from, and what the uncut flannel was allocated for. So no harm done. Just perhaps a little out of sequence. We do what we have to do!
The newbies added to the mix consist of a bright flower-heart print and a small pink dot which reads "pale pink" from a distance. They pull everything else together rather nicely.
Here's the new and improved "random" arrangement. I think we're ready to roll on this one.
I don't think I can remember an April so lovely, the weather has been amazing. The tree peonies and azaleas are in full bloom. Everything is green and the sky is actually blue for a change.
I don't know where those yellow tulips came from. My garden always seems to be full of surprises. And speaking of flowers.
Honeycomb Quilt #3 in progress. Flowers are done and in their proper places. I've already started joining them to the connecting rows since this picture was taken. I know I promised you pictures of Honeycomb Quilt #2, but at the moment it's being used as a template for this quilt and I don't want to disturb the placement of my flowers in order to move it.
Silly me. But here's a little peek underneath.
Here's another quilt in progress. A group effort. We're using the design wall to see where we're at with this. Sometimes it helps to just stand back and look at the overall design. We don't have equal numbers of anything; the squares were all cut from scraps, so this will be a randomly pieced quilt, pretty much how it looks here. But those letter blocks aren't working for me. I'm thinking 'less is more'. Maybe plain white would be better. Sometimes a little white works wonders to calm more saturated colors and busy patterns.
An example in nature, from the tulip farm. Yep. I think white is right.
So, I finished Honeycomb Quilt #2, and already started on Honeycomb Quilt #3 last week. I haven't had a chance to photograph the finished quilt yet, but will try and do it as soon as the rain stops, the skies clear, and some decent lighting returns.
Here's the label I made for it. (Sorry for the bad lighting. See what I mean?) Anyway, for this quilt, I used a soft contrasting color of bias binding to compliment the minty green border strips. My usual choice for purchased binding is extra wide double fold instead of "quilt binding" which is wider. Sometimes I make my own bias strips, but for this quilt I found Wright's sunlight #206 was perfect, so I got online and ordered it here.
Also on the cutting table... the makings of a flannel patchwork. All this cut from scraps! I am putting together a cuddle quilt for a little granddaughter who is turning five next month. Oh, we do keep ourselves busy around here.
But back to the fun at hand. A few of you have asked questions about the hexagon quilt, so I'll try and give a little more information on this method. As I mentioned before, I'm basically using my own 4" hexagons that I've printed and cut out from the 8.5 x 11" freezer paper craft sheets. I can get six hexagons per sheet; they are printed without seam allowance.
I make my hexagon "patches" just like you would make an applique using the freezer paper method. What I do to streamline the process, is to first cut 5" strips of fabric. Then I place the hexagon template waxed-side down on top of the fabric making sure I have at least 3/8" all the way around to allow for the seam allowance; then I press it lightly with an iron so it sticks to the fabric. Since this is a symetrical shape you can place the template on the right or wrong side of the fabric. I usually fold or stack up to four layers at a time to save a bit of cutting--you will need good, sharp scissors for this.
When I cut around the paper template, I just eyeball the seam allowance. It does not have to be perfect. BUT, your template does need to be accurate, so make sure you cut those carefully. After cutting, peel off the template and place it waxed-side up on the wrong side of the fabric, centering it so that you have an equal seam allowance all around. Fold seam edges over, and press with an iron again to hold them in place. I find a mini craft iron works well for all the pressing. I do a few dozen in a sitting, and then stitch them together later with a single strand of quilting thread which has been knotted at one end. Stitch hexagons together right sides facing, with a small whip stitch. (This is a variation of the English-piecing method in which paper or cardstock templates are used and fabric is tacked at each corner.) Carefully remove the template when all sides have been sewn.
The freezer-paper patterns are easy to use and can be used over and over again. I'm still using some of them from the first quilt! Recently, I noticed that a few quilt companies are starting to offer pre-cut fabric and paper hexagon templates along with new machine piecing methods, and that's a great idea and certainly a time saver. But I would really like to see someone produce pre-cut freezer paper templates in a variety of sizes for hexagons, as I think this method trumps all for the hand-stitcher.
A dining table is perfect for layering quilts. I didn't baste this one because I planned to put it in a table-frame straight away, so just used a few safety pins around the edges to hold it in place.
A peek at the flip side. I like using my own 4" freezer paper templates printed onto letter-sized sheets. I can iron one template on top of a few layers of fabric and just simply eyeball the quarter-inch seam allowance as I cut them out. The seam lines are accurate because they are folded over the template, but the seam allowance is less critical.
Ready to start quilting. This wooden table frame is like a gigantic embroidery hoop. It's half the size of a cardtable with the same folding legs. I like that I can just move it around or pull a chair up to it. I bought this at a quilt show in California, from a couple who designed and made them back in the 1980's. I don't think they are around anymore. The quilt-frames or the couple. Sadly. But I bet they would both be very happy to know their marvelous invention was still in use!
Nice weather prompts me to move the whole operation outside. Sheer heaven. Sometimes, I just drape my quilt over the frame without the hoop piece, to keep it off the ground while I work on small areas with a quilting hoop. There are lots of turning angles with a hexagon. The hand-quilting went a little faster this time using the "stitch in the ditch" method, rather than doing double rows of stitching on each side of the seams. The end result is a softer, fluffier quilt.
I've now begun Honeycomb Quilt #3 with a new color palette of pink. This is what I already had in my stash, but I couldn't resist skipping round the web for fabric and color inspiration and happened to run across these precut 6" hexagons that come with a template to mark the sewing seams, along with directions on how to assemble them by machine. I'm just passing this information along in case anyone is interested. I'm rather enjoying all the hand-sewing just now, but may try that out sometime.
Also found this interesting. Did you know that it is possible to make an entire quilt top in about 40 minutes starting with one really, Really, REALLY long strip of jellyroll fabric? It's awesome how this works. Check it out. Click twice to see this full-screen and hold onto your hat.
Pretty neat, huh? And these plum fabrics look SO yummy.
OK, back to my quilts. Will update my progress on them in a couple of days.
The finished quilt! I do love how it turned out. So sweet and old-fashioned with the little embroidered pictures framed in the center of the bright petals, like a child's watercolor paintbox palette. Introducing, Honeycomb Quilt #1. Because Honeycomb Quilt #2 is in the works, done primarily in aqua and red this time, and because Honeycomb Quilt #3 is already in the planning stages, and will be very pretty in PINK! Which is going to be awesome. We've already started gathering the fabric scraps for it. Trying to narrow it down to just a few shades of pink. Some old, some new. Here's some of what we have so far.
I'm excited. Can't wait to dig into this basket. I haven't really used pink for awhile and these spring colors, like the cherry blossoms exploding all around us right now, have captured my heart. I'm reminded of a quote by Bonnie Leman, the woman who started 'Quilter's Newsletter Magazine' so long ago. She said, "A storebought blanket will stop the shivers, but a handmade quilt will warm the soul". So true. We do tend to put much of ourselves into a quilt. Not just the doing part, but the dreaming and planning that goes along with it. But I digress. Back to the quilt at hand. . .
I've been trying for weeks to photograph this quilt properly. And once again, I realize how really hard it is to capture the beauty and the intrinsic qualities of a quilt in a photograph. If there's not enough light everything looks fuzzy, too much light and the colors fade. Up too close and you can't see the overall design, too far away and you lose the detail. Camera too high or too low and the whole thing looks wonky and distorted. My shaky hands don't help matters much either.
I tried many times indoors on rainy days with full-spectrum lighting and on sunny days next to diffused window panes, and outside with three different cameras. The first shot (at top), off the side porch, was with a Nikon D-80 ("big bruiser") on a tripod (foolproof) with a timed-shutter on auto-focus to avoid any jiggling. But as you can see, there's still room for improvement. The only thing out of focus seems to be the quilt! After dozens of shots, with adjusted settings, I just kept getting the same results. (How do you photograph your quilts?) This is as good as it gets for now.
Ditto for this one we photographed on the design wall. But you can see the overall pattern and how the block sections are broken up along the sides. Some have asked about that, and this is one way to square up the edges. I did take another approach with HCQ #2 because the quilt size is different and size and shape will ultimately determine the edge piecing. There is also the option of leaving the edges scalloped. But that means a little more work fitting the binding around the zigs and the zags. I might try that next time.
For HCQ #1 though, I used a super easy self-binding method. That of bringing the backing up over the quilt-top, then simply folding it under along the edge and using a tiny blind-stitch to hold it in place. Mitred corners add a nice detail, rather than having them overlap. I like neat and tidy corners.
And we must not forget to label (or at least sign) our quilts. Your descendants will appreciate it more than you know. I think I already mentioned other details about this quilt in past posts, so I won't repeat them again, but feel free to ask me questions if you have them.
So I guess that's it for this one. I'll post some pics of HCQ#2 (in progress) soon.
Hello! Just dropping in with an update to show the progress I'm making on my quilt, which I think is coming along nicely. So much wonderful color for winter-weary eyes. I just finished doing some feather-stitching around some of the embroidered patches, to frame them. Still have a few more to go. I'm alternating between the two stitches to keep things interesting.
I was browsing through a book of old quilt patterns the other day and this block (single flowers--with one row of hexagons between them) was referred to as, "honeycomb". I like the sound of that. Yes, I do. So that's what I'm calling it. Honeycomb. Perfect.
March is supposed to come 'in like a lion', but it has arrived more like a lamb (right now anyway.) I added ice cubes to my tea. This weather is warmer than usual, the sun is shining brightly, the air is mild. It's supposed to reach up into the 70's by tomorrow. Then a little rain after that.
It seems that spring has sprung like fountains of gold around here. Daffodil bouquets just waiting to be picked.
I walked out the backdoor yesterday to glorious birdsong filling the air. I closed my eyes and listened. Must've been a dozen different kinds of birds tweeting, cooing, and chirping from the trees. Flocks have been arriving for weeks now. We erected this little white bird feeder last summer where the birch grove used to be. I still miss the trees, but I love how cute this is!
Then I saw these critters. Just like before. You know the drill. And so do they.
They nibbled, they scratched, they licked and they lounged in the yard all day like they owned the place. Followed by four more the next day. I guess the word is out: these peeps are pushovers.
Roses beware! Looks like trouble ahead. Time for the magic concoction.
And time to get back to my quilting. And perhaps a little gardening before the rain returns. I've been watching a few garden vids for ideas and inspiration. Enjoy!
