154 Hexagons

This weekend I decided to cut into my new favorite fabric, Amy Butler's Hapi. 

I saw this fabric on Etsy a couple of months ago (sold by ModernQuilter), but couldn't decide what to do with it until I saw LizzyClips Design's WIP, I'm too Hexie.

I like hand sewing, and decided that I had to try some EPP.
 

 
I haven't decided on a final design yet, and still have some solid hexies to baste before I decide.

 
I bought a Fiskars Hexagon Squeeze Punch which made the process go much more smoothly. I had a box of old business cards in my desk at work, and was able to make close to 200 hexagons from it. Now I have 200 business cards with 1 inch hexagon holes in them.  

 

 

I started with thread basting, but that was slow going. I switched to glue, and it's working out well so far. 

 



I now have 154 Hapi Hexies ready to be sewn together.

For now, they all fit in this little box, waiting to turn into a quilt. I'm aiming for a 60 x 60 top, and according to this website I only need to make 1200 more. Wow.

Happy Sunday!

Linking with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced, Nini and The Sea's  Weekly Inspiration Linky Party, and Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation. 

A Bit of Sunshine

Woohoo! I received my first block for the Supernova Swap!

To learn more about the swap, you can read this post. 

My partner, Amy, and I decided on a mostly aqua and orange color scheme using A.E. Nathan Co.'s Quiltology and coordinating scraps from our own stashes.

I did an orange block for the first month. It turned out better than I expected,  I thought those bias seams would be the end of me. After a few do-overs, lots of extra starch, and an unfortunate incident with a seam ripper, I was finished.

 

 



 

And Amy made an aqua block:

 



 

I think the bicycles are my favorite print in the whole bundle.

 

I love how they look together. Very bright and cheerful. I had to do all my photos inside, it's hurricane season here, and has been quite gloomy. They do look much brighter in person, and are cheering up my living room wall.

 

I got so excited, didn't even trim the threads off mine before taking photos :)

 

I can't wait to see how this turns out, I'm ready to start on my July blocks. I'm hoping next month goes more smoothly.

Linking with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and Nini and the Sea's Weekly Inspiration Party. 
  

P.S, don't forget to check out Plum and June's 2014 New Quilt Blogger Blog Hop!

 

 

There are two groups (so far) of new bloggers to check out. I've been enjoying discovering their new blogs, and hope you do too! I'm in group 4, which will be posting in July, so stay tuned!



That rainy day feeling

It's definitely summer here in South Florida. I think it has rained every. single. day. for the last month.

This year I tried gardening, and planted some cherry tomatoes. I think they're drowning, the leaves are turning brown.
 

 

 

All this time indoors has given me the "motivation" I needed to finish the oven mitt I was making my dad for Father's Day. Better late than never. My dad taught me how to cook, and I thought he'd enjoy this. I've never seen oven mitts like this here in the U.S.

 

 

Making this reminded me of the Gavin and Stacy episode where the men are gathered around the kitchen, admiring Mick's oven glove.

 

 

You should never use a tea towel.

Because I didn't have time for a practice oven mitt, I made some brownies so we could test it out.

I love red velvet cake, so I didn't really need an excuse to try these.

 
Tom proved himself to be an excellent model for these.

No burns, so I think these are safe to gift to Dad.

Happy Saturday! Go eat some brownies.

Just Keep Quilting, Just Keep Quilting...

This week I've been working on hand quilting my mod spots quilt.  

I love hand quilting, but this is taking forever. At this rate, I'll be done in October. :)

I've also spent a lot of time checking out the blogs on Plum and June's New Blogger Blog Hop.



I've found lots of new blogs to follow, and have picked up  quite a few new quilting and blogging tips--go check them out!

Until then, just keep quilting, just keep quilting....

 Linking with WIP Wednesday and Needle & Thread Thursday

Kindle Cover Upgrade

This week I upgraded my Kindle cover.

I hate buying covers and cases for electronics. They seem so expensive, and have always thought I could make one at home.

I used to crochet my Kindle covers. This is one I made with a Tunisian/afghan hook about 6 months ago. The nice thing about these is they're very easy to make. The problem is, they don't last long.

 

 

I was able to make this fairly quickly, but ran into a few problems when I was trying to line up the corners that hold the Kindle in place.

 

When I put the binding on, I also fastened a piece of elastic on the back so I could fold it over and hold the cover shut.

 

 

The cover is bigger than I would have liked, as I wasn't really sure how much bigger than the Kindle it should be.

 

 







It serves its purpose though, and it's nice that I can leave it in the cover when in use and when charging. I'm hoping this one will hold up better than the ones I've crocheted!

Happy Friday!

Linking at Crazy Mom Quilts and My Quilt Infatuation. p.s. my Picnic Quilt was featured on MQI's NTT this week, woot! :)  
 

Moneta Sewalong

My fabric finally arrived today for the Moneta Sewalong!

A couple of weeks ago, Devon from Miss Make announced she'd be hosting a Sewalong for the Moneta from Colette Patterns.

Here are some images from the Colette Patterns site:

They have 3 versions, sleeveless, short sleeves and 3/4 sleeves.

 

This came at a perfect time. I've been wanting to try garment sewing, but I need some guidance. So far I'm impressed. The pattern seems relatively simple and comes in a nice little book with extra instructions.

I think I'll go for the short sleeved version.

You can join in or see their other Sewalongs here!

Now off to pre-wash my fabric and make some pattern weights. Sewing starts next week.

 

Balinese Quilt Top

I have a very exciting work in progress this week (my oldest work in progress!) and a lot of photos.

It all started 5 years ago while I was living in Jakarta, Indonesia. My BFF, Kate, came to visit me and we took a trip to Bali.


Kate and Kate in Ubud, Bali

While there, we made a trip to Ubud. Ubud is known for its market, it has all the regular cheap tourist stuff that you'd expect in Bali, T-shirts, sandals, sarongs, etc, but it also has a lot of batik, paintings, pottery and other Balinese artwork. 

I picked up this quilt top for my mom:

I am glad I didn't have to piece all of those HSTs.

I really like batik, and it's everywhere in Indonesia. Batik clothes aren't really my style, but I thought a quilt would be nice. I also thought it would be an easy thing to bring home.

 

A year and a half later, I moved home and gave it to my mom. I figured she could just go out, buy a queen size sheet and some batting to make it a quilt. My mom has always sewn and done crafts, so I assumed she'd be able to whip this up in an afternoon.

Apparently quilting is a time consuming process, and my mom doesn't quilt. So the quilt top has been folded over a rocking chair for the last few years, and I forgot about it until a couple weeks ago.

Now it's here, and I'm very excited to finish it, but I'm not sure what to do.

For a start, it's synthetic. It's also not pieced very accurately, but I don't want to take it apart. I really don't want to ruin it. I've never seen batik like this outside of Indonesia.  

It's hard to tell from the photos, but there is some shimmer in it as well.

My plan is to hand quilt it (it's a whopping 84 x 100).

Has anyone out there quilted with synthetics? I've looked online, and I read that hand quilting is "not recommended." Tying seems to be the popular choice for polyester quilt tops, but I don't really want to do that. I'm also not sure what's wrong with hand quilting.... if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears!

Linking with Nini & the Sea, and hoping for some weekly inspiration :)   

Finished HST Star Quilt

We were at a family wedding last weekend in Charleston, and I was able to gift my HST Star quilt to my cousin and his new wife.

I got a charm pack of American Jane's Pot Luck back in April, and I wasn't really sure what to do with the little squares. I ended up getting some solid royal blue fabric and making what felt like millions of HSTs. I did get a few other prints from Joann because I needed more fabric to finish the design.

I also really love the back. You can almost see the quilting in this picture. I did a geometric/square pattern with my walking foot.

Here's a close-up with the binding (flash warning!)

 

The quilt is 74x74ish, so it's difficult to hold up on your own. 

 





 

Here's to hoping it doesn't fall apart in the near future! This was my first quilt gift so it does make me a little nervous.

 

And here's to another almost Friday!

 

Linking with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday and Nini & The Sea.

 



Plum and June's New Blogger Blog Hop is Coming!

Plum and June's New Blogger Blog Hop is Coming!

I'm very excited to join this blog hop, meet some new bloggers and quilting friends, get inspired and (hopefully) get more tech advice on blogging. 

It's not my turn until July, so I'm hoping that will give me plenty of time to figure out how to blog :)

And because all blogs need photos, here's one from my cousin's wedding this weekend:

Don't know why Tom did the Napoleon pose, but my dad thought it was brilliant.

I also really want to make a quilt like this dress. I love geometric prints on everything.