Slow Stitching Those Hexies

 My hexie garden grows bigger, bit by bit. Adding on that outer round of color really makes all the difference. Here's my little partial flower from last Sunday, in its blooming process. Getting its inner surround and needing its outer layer.

And now that I'm home and near my "stash," I find the prettiest of the pretties to add on.

The outer layer gives the flower a bit of subtle "pop." The eventual quilt will have flowers that are bright and bold, while others - like the one above - will be soft and muted. I suppose lots of actual gardens bloom like this - a haphazard array of colors of varying intensity. That will certainly describe the quilt that will someday result here. All my flowers are strewn out here - 26 total!

I saw the prettiest antique Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt recently on Instagram. It does me good to see them pop up on my feed from time to time because it motivates me to keep going. The stitching is so slow, and I know many hours of continued stitching are yet ahead of me. Thinking about getting to a finish can be daunting! Click on the picture caption to be taken to the IG source. Once there, you'll see additional views.

From Instagram

Seeing beauties like this from years gone by, and seeing that they frequently remain in pristine condition, I am encouraged to forge on. Isn't this beautiful!??! I've not spent any time thinking about how I will set mine together, but this arrangement in white and yellow has to be considered. It's breathtaking!

Another way I am motivated to keep on stitching is to check in weekly with the party girls at Kathy's Quilts. Her link up always provides inspiration and encouragement. Check out this week's Slow Sunday Stitching.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

We're Home!

And we have been since Tuesday evening. It was a great vacation - one that will forever be memorable.

Because...

We bought a vacation home!

Our days of renting Air BnB's are over! We now have a place we can go to whenever we decide we want to get away. We found this double wide mobile home in the same resort that my cousins live in, and we couldn't be more thrilled with the find. It's near Floral City.

Buying was definitely NOT on the agenda, but we'd discussed it for some future time. Well, this property came available and the price was too good to pass up. We had the deed in hand in a week's time. Total serendipity! She was ready to sell; we were situated to buy. BOOM! Done deal.

We will be going back in 2-3 weeks when the seller has moved. We will be cleaning and sprucing it up; moving things around; decorating; you know - all the fun stuff! I will definitely have before/after pics coming.

With that bit of surprising news out of the way, let's talk quilts. I could NOT focus on diamonds when Sharon was here to sew on Thursday. It just seemed far too daunting. (It really isn't; my brain was the issue!) Click here to see the diamond quilt I worked on while in Florida.

Instead, I just reached for a batch of HSTs that have resided on the back of my sewing table for far too many months. Sew 'em together! Who knows what they will become!

That pile of HSTs made these 6 blocks. I didn't really try to "place" anything in order; in other words: no thinking! I like how this looks, yet I really don't "envision" anything in particular.

If I used just 4 blocks, I could very easily see a pillow front taking shape. Hmmm... That would leave me with leftover blocks, though. Maybe I should dig into the Kaffe Fassett tubs to make more HSTs. If I had 9 blocks or 12 blocks, I could easily have a nice table topper or wall hanging.

How did I find myself with all these HSTs? This quilt from last year, Ocean Ripple. March 2022! Gosh, I can't believe it was that far back. I remember when I was making Ocean Ripple, I didn't really know how many HSTs would be required for the rows that would form the outer border. So, (in true Jayne fashion) I just started making them; I know I was thinking, "Ah, just make a bunch. If I make too many, I will use them somehow." 

Here's a post from last March when I was finishing Ocean Ripple. My goal was to make several Kaffe Fassett quilts; this was one of them.

That's all for today, Peeps! Now that we are home, perhaps I can get back into the habit of more regular blog posts. I have really gotten lazy about it lately. 

Oh! One more thing! The first thing we did once we got back - a visit to see Cate, our dear granddaughter.

Getting ready for bed; almost 4 months!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Vacation Hexies

Gosh, have we had a fun month of fun and sun! Sewing/stitching has been very much on the back burner. It seems like a no-brainer to use the evenings for hand sewing, but I fall asleep almost instantly the minute I sit down - I am plum worn out from all the activity.

All that said, though, somehow I have managed to accomplish a tad bit before nodding off. Here is a smallish update.

Mostly, I have been prepping hexies. This little pile is such a satisfying sight to see. I will work out the combinations of colors later. Below is my finished pile of flowers (only the top 4 were done on this trip).

And that is another very satisfying pile! Over 20 flowers for my garden! With a garden such as this, can spring be far behind?? I love the variety of colors and combinations. It reminds me of English cottage gardens with their explosions of color. Makes me happy!

I did start a new flower last night and this is as far as I got before my eyelids got heavy. I can make plenty of flowers with just the first surround of color. The outer surround requires 12 hexies, and I don't have enough of one fabric in my little travel collection of prepped hexies. Outer rounds will have to be an added when I get back home.

So my slow stitching has been super-slow due to all the vacation fun. And I am so NOT mad about it! Progress is progress, as we all know. At least I moved forward. We have packed a lot of enjoyable and memorable events into this trip, and the sewing will save for slower days back at home.

I am linking to the fine seamstresses over at Kathy's Quilts and her Slow Sunday Stitching party. It's always a joy to stay in tune with the progress they make from week to week. 

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Floral Diamonds Progress Report

Since finishing that baby quilt a whole two weeks ago, I have been stitching diamonds together. Between running around doing vacation things, finding time to sew has been a very low priority, I regret to admit. However, I knew this would be the case, and I am not terribly distressed by this reality. We came to have fun and DO a lot of stuff, so any sewing I get to do would be gravy on top.

 I want all my fabrics and colors to be scattered pleasingly across the quilt, so I am laying the rows out on the bed and stitching row-by-row.

This method requires that I keep everything in the correct order, and in a makeshift sewing space, that proves somewhat challenging. I am doing okay so far, I think. I do find that I am adding more diamonds onto the ends of these rows, so I hope I am not shocked by odd globs of dark diamonds in an area. So far, so good.

I took several pictures of these rows laid out on the bed so as to be able to reference them should I lose my correct placement. I admit that I've had to consult these photos more than a few times.

I have begun stitching the rows, and this is making me very happy! I love how this is looking! I sure hope I can figure out how to square it up later. Not having my pattern with me has me all discombobulated when "envisioning" sides and top/bottom. Those 60-degree angles make "square" sorta' complicated in my head.

Some vacation highlight pictures will show you what we find ourselves doing most days. We have the most perfect walking trail nearby, and we've walked quite regularly, usually in 2- or 3-mile outings.

The first picture looks as if it could be our walking trail back in Ohio, but the second photo from a different spot on the trail assures us that we are indeed in Florida. With so many lakes and ponds in the area, I couldn't begin to accurately name them all.

Vacation continues and sporadic sewing continues, as well. 

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Quilted Twins

 Thanks to a comment from a reader local to Inverness and Citrus County, Florida, (thank you, Mama Llama!) DH and I took a little drive a few days ago to Dade City to visit Quilted Twins. I had no reason to expect that it was anything other than a typical local quilting shop. 

Gosh, was I in for a surprise!

Quilted Twins is a fabric warehouse and to suggest that I was surrounded by bolts of fabric would be to understate things. This shop consisted of many rooms packed with ceiling-to-floor shelves stuffed with bolts of fabric. It was truly overwhelming. I will let these pictures show the volume of quilting fabric stuffed into this place.

Mostly, the fabrics were separated by color which makes sense. Then, there were specialty sections or rooms, such as a batik room, a juvenile print section, a holiday or special occasion section, and a humongous area devoted to panels of every imaginable subject. Much of the fabric is closeout, but they do carry some current fabrics, too. It was quite an eclectic blend of old, new, modern, 30s, reproduction, solids, and more. So much more.

Fat quarters.

Cutting tables.

Standing at the check-out desk.

Now, I don't believe I ever revealed that I'd privately made a personal vow that I would NOT buy fabric this year - call it a 2023 New Year's resolution. Well, you guessed it. I bought 2 yards. 

However, I think I can talk myself into referring to this as a souvenir purchase rather than a fabric one. Or perhaps I will add the parameter that I can only buy sale fabric. Whichever way I look at it, two more yards of fabric will be entering the quilting room when we get home.  

And I'm not mad about it.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

 

Slow Stitching Hexies

Thank goodness for hand-stitching projects. It has been lots of fun making more hexie flowers for a someday Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt.

Before we began our current Florida adventure, I had three hexie flowers in need of their final outer circles of color. The one you see above was finished while on the road, as was the one below.

This gives the impression that I am leaning toward a primarily pink flower garden, but if you check the stack of finished flowers that can be seen in both pictures, I do have other colors, as well. This flower garden will have all the colors - someday.

Here is the one I just finished. I had to improvise with the outer surround, as I lacked two hexagons in the desired fabric. Since I wanted it finished rather than perfect, I selected two almost-right hexies and proceeded to finish it off. 

I am reminded that this is what our grandmother's did - they "made do" with near-matching bits to complete their quilts. Someday, when this quilt is finished, perhaps someone will look at this particular flower and wonder what the maker was thinking when she used those two non-matching bits. Will the thought occur to them that I was just using what I had?

I am joining the party over at Kathy's Quilts - her weekly Slow Sunday Stitching party always offers up so much inspiration.  I see that our hostess is cross stitching, and several others are doing hexie quilts similar to mine. Hope you'll pop on over to have a look-see.

I now need to prep more hexies. All the partial flowers are finished, so we get to create new ones next!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Easy Baby Quilt

Vacation sewing has been going great. Never having done it before, I believe I planned very well by preparing projects at home for simple, straightforward sewing while away. One project is entirely finished and I am enjoying the more involved project without the pressure of another quilt waiting to be worked on.

The Baby Henry quilt is in the flimsy stage now, and it is just as sweet as can be. 

The blocks in this quilt are all from 10" layer cake squares. From each square I cut the following:

•  one 5-inch square 
• two rectangles,  5 inches x 2.5 inches
• two rectangles, 9 inches x 2.5 inches

Basically, the construction involves simply framing the square with the rectangles. Each square finishes at 8.5 inches. This was the easiest, most basic piecing I think I have ever done, and the result is an amply-sized quilt for newborn Henry.

Some people might not care for so much salmon-peach-terra cotta colors for a boy quilt, but I tried interspersing all the other colors evenly so as to minimize any 'girly' look it might have. I used the entire layer cake, and this line had these colors. To read more about the details of the layer cake, click back here.

This photo shows the entire layout, and how simple it looks. Perfect for a baby quilt. I will get this quilted when I get back home and then delivered to baby Henry asap.

Vacation continues to be enjoyable, sunny and fun. We have become shuffleboard players and have gotten back into the habit of daily walking. 

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Another Mondo Bag

You already know that I made a Mondo Bag for quilter friend Becky in our Frankfort Girls quilting group. Read all about it here. In that post, I explained that I'd made a total of 4 Mondo Bags, but that wasn't exactly the truth. However, telling the truth would have revealed other secret sewing, so I told a Christmas fib.

Now the truth: I have made 5 Mondo Bags!

I could not divulge at the time that I was secretly making a Mondo Bag for Sharon.  Because of our schedules, my traveling, illness in her family, and miscellaneous holiday obligations, we never did coordinate gift-giving. 

So I dropped by her place one random day well after Christmas when she wasn't even home, and left this at her door. Merry Belated Christmas, Sharon!

This was a bag that very nearly DIDN'T get made. I knew when I made Becky's that I was using my last pattern, so I ordered a couple online. I would use a partial jelly roll of that luscious fabric line Roman Holiday (we both love it so much!) - I knew I had it somewhere in my stash. It would be perfect for Sharon's Mondo. When the new patterns arrived - well after Christmas - and I was ready to start Sharon's bag, I could not find that jelly roll anywhere! Waaaa! I searched and searched. 

And get this audacity - after I'd exhausted my extensive searching efforts, I asked Sharon if she knew where it might be in my sewing room! 

I finally gave up searching and decided that I'd use another beloved fabric, French General. It's still gorgeous and it's definitely a worthy second option.

The construction was as straightforward as ever; and in about an afternoon I had the bag finished. The panels are created with random 2.5-inch squares, and then magically when sewn together a fantastic bag results! Ingenious!

Sharon sent this pic yesterday, indicating that she is using and loving her Mondo Bag! Yay!!

Now, in the meantime, I think I have figured out when I must have used that partial Roman Holiday jelly roll. "Roman Holiday Jelly Roll quilt" is a picture file I found on my laptop while searching for evidence of my missing jelly roll - ha! The jokes on me! Am I becoming forgetful?!

Made in 2021, I vaguely recall intending to use lots of Roman Holiday remnants. I am sure that all the 9-patches in this quilt are made from that jelly roll.

Happy Quilting, Friends!