Hexie Quilt: Completed!

She's finished!

Woo hoo!  It took me all of a year of slowly but surely hand-piecing those little hexies together but as of Sunday afternoon, this little lady was finished.

It was a little tricky finishing it up with all the tiny hexies and cutting some of them down as I added the sashing but it worked out.  I stippled it for the quilting since I wanted it pretty tightly done to add strength to all the hand sewing that was holding the top together. 

I love the fabric I found for the back and it matched the solid I used on the sashing perfectly.  I was so happy to have some leftover so I'll still have some of that pretty green to add to some other future scrap quilt.

It feels so nice to have it done!  Although I sort of miss sitting on the couch at night catching up on my Hulu queue next to the hubster sewing my hexies.  

I guess I'll just have to start another one..... (ha... just kidding...this baby took so long....probably won't be turning to another hexie pattern for awhile...)

And just in case you're wondering......there are 1,326 little hexies on this baby.  

Hexie Progress

Last night I put my boys to bed and settled in downstairs with my hexie quilt and an episode (or three) of Once Upon a Time.  It seems quite appropriate to hand stitch along to a TV show about fairy tales, don't you think?  Anyway I'm getting really close to finishing this little pretty.  Or at least finishing up the top.  The big debate is do I add one more row or just head on into adding on the sashing to it.  I bought a green Kona solid to hexie around the whole thing for sashing.  I have six leftover little orphaned hexiess though so the temptation to use them up with one more row is big.  I don't care for leftovers.

I'm getting really excited at the prospect that this baby might be done in time for my new baby in May....

WIP Wednesday: Some Color

I've been it a bit of a slow sewing phase.  I would call it a rut but rut implies something bad and really, I haven't been sewing because I've been reading more, playing more with my kids and paying a little more attention to things like laundry and dishes in the sink (wink).  Balance is hard for me sometimes as when I find something I want to do I just want to do it all the time.  I think that's why I read the same books over and over again because then I know what happens so I can put them down and not stay up all night because I have to know what happens.

But lately some little ideas have been perkalating and now I'm dabbling in my projects again.  

This little pile of fun is my current baby.  I keep an old baby formula can on my table and periodically cut 3"
squares and when it gets full I start playing like with my lily squares and nuts and bolts squares.

 These squares are quick and easy and utilize only 3" squares (or half or quarters of 3" squares) which makes it a fun way to work through my 3" scrap bucket.  I'm shooting for a full quilt of about 65 x 70 or so.

My Netflix cue brought me the Christie disks (does anyone else remember that miniseries?) and I've been watching it at night while working on the hexies.  I love that this is a project that I can just keep coming back to over and over.  Pick up, put down, since the little guys are so small I really have no expectation of finishing it anytime soon.  It can just be a process.

And this little pile of cuteness is for a baby snugglie ordered by an old friend through my shop on etsy.  I'm excited to make another snugglie and really love these fabrics together. 

 Miss Molly has a cute etsy shop of her own which you should all check out if you're in the market for cute cards!.  

Today I'm linking up with:

   

WIP Wednesday: A little of this and a little of that....

I'm just loving these Lily's Square blocks.

Loving them.

They are really quite quick to whip out and I've been trying to find a little time here and a little time there to plug along with them.  They are so colorful and bright that I have just left them hanging on my little art work clothes line in the loft.

This weekend over four sessions of General Conference for my church, I listened while I sewed up 5 blocks which added four more rows of hexies to my little quilt.  I do blocks that are 4 hexies by 5 hexies and then sew them in a panel five blocks long.

She's about the size of a bathmat now.

Quilts that took the backburner this week:

SINGLE GIRL:

I'm still four blocks away from finishing my Single Girl top.  I'm shooting for that to happen Friday. 

POSTCARDS FROM GRANNY:

I picked up four quarter yard fabric pieces to finish a few more blocks and then I think it will be ready to sew together for a completed top.  Depending on how big that ends up being I'm not sure if I'll wait to quilt it this summer when I have access to a long arm or if Bernie can handle it.

Today I'm linking up with:

The Hexie Holder

Next month I'll be heading to Finland.  Its sort of the realization of a lifelong dream to head home to the motherland and visit family.  I'm so excited I can hardly sleep at night.

I've been planning and daydreaming all the things I can sit and do during my long flight to Helsinki and on the top of the list is some time with my hexies.

So I made this little hexie holder to tote them along for my Scandinavian adventure.

I found the fabric at Hart's here in Santa Cruz.  I am sort of over the moon in love with this fabric and kind of want to wallpaper my life in it.  I. love. it.   

Turns out zippers are tricky and that took me the longest.  I sort of made it up as I went along but I think it turned out pretty well and it is going to work great for toting hexie supplies on the airplane and anywhere else I'd need to bring them.

Its got one pocket for completed hexies, one pocket for templates

and then one fuller pocket for fabric pieces and a large pocket on the side to place completed blocks and little spots for travel scissors, thread, needles, thimble and even a threader should I decide to use one.

I love how it turned out and I think its going to be perfect for my trip.

Two more weeks till go time!

A home for the hexies...

I picked these little pretties up for a project I'm hoping to have ready for Fabric Tuesday tomorrow, the linky over at Quilt Story. 

I'm off to Finland in two weeks (yay!) to visit family and I wanted to have a pretty little holder for my hexies so I can work on it during my flight.

I've got an idea in my head and we'll see if I can find some time today during nap time to get it done.  

Stay tuned...

While the cat's away, the mouse will play. With scissors.

I keep my ongoing hexagon project in a little basket downstairs on the side table next to the couch.  This way I can pick it up here and there as I find time to sit and work on it a bit.

I really love this little hexie project.

The other day I was upstairs, taking a shower or some other necessity while the baby napped and Carver was left downstairs enjoying some Fireman Sam or Barney for a bit.  

This is usually not a problem.  

However.  

When I came back downstairs, I found this guy in some trouble.

He's just recently take a fancy to scissors and all the fun that can be had welding them.

Apparently my little hexie basket's days of going unnoticed by this little fella are over.

I found him working on this quietly on the couch.

I thought I had just found him in time and this was the only damage done.  He said sorry mama and we had a talk about scissors and how we

  only use kiddo scissors and we 

only use them on paper

with mama helping.

Then last night I sat down to catch up on some Hulu with my hexie basket and I found this...

and this

Bummer.  

Lucky for him he was sleeping quietly and cutely in his bed so when I went in to "talk to him" about this new discovery, 

he was looking so sweet and innocent I just had to laugh and kiss his cheeks and snuggle on him a bit.

I think I'm going to leave them so someday when the hexie quilt is done and old and we're wrapping his little baby in, I can look at those little scars and remember the curious little imp of a boy I was blessed to have and all the fun little rascally things he did.

After all, memories are what quilts are all about right?

Work in progress Wednesday!

I linked up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

My work in progress is of course my Single Girl which I think will be a WIP for awhile.  I added a little button on my sidebar to track my progress.

I'm hoping to get these little babies sewn today as it is a stormy day in Santa Cruz and we're hanging indoors. They are single girl blocks that I pinned at craft night last night.

This is a two-fer WIP as my little inspiration wall is a work in progress that I just added above my sewing desk and finished a hexagon block.

Still loving on these hexies.

Click on over to Freshly Pieced and see what everyone else is doing!

What day is it?

You would think that since I'm a stay at home mama, without a work week to mark my days by I wouldn't be so thrown off by a silly thing like Presidents day.  Well when I sat down to type this post I was all ready to blast out a WIP Wednesday Post about my Single Girl piecing but what do you know?  

Its turns out its Thursday.  

So what shall we do?

Things That Are Done Thursday?  

We'll just go with it and pretend it was all planned out anyway.  Who knows, maybe it will stick?

The other day I showed off a little of my work in progress, the hexie snuggler. 

 And last night I finished her up and today she's all packaged up and ready to head off to 

Mississippi to baby Claire.  

(am I the only one who still has to do the M-i-s-s-I-s-s-I-pp-I chanty thing when I spell Mississippi? 

 Or I spell it wrong?)

Claire's mama was one of my dear college roomies and her favorite color was red.  Maybe it still is?  Whenever I think of her mom I always think of bright colors.  Like those pretty painted earthenware plates you buy in Mexico.  And parrots.  

Anyway, the long and the short is that I felt compelled, no driven to have Claire's snuggler red.  And since its creation coincided with my intruduction to my new love of hexigons, we ended up with this little bumble bee motif.

I carried it around all day in my bag yesterday and kept catching glimpses of it and all its bright colors would give my heart a happy little jump.  I guess that's one (of the many) things her mama and I have had in common.  

We love bright colors.

So there you go baby Claire!  Its on its way!  I wish I could deliver it in person!

Crazy for Hexigons

I have always loved hexagon quilts but the paper piecing seemed so intimidating.  

I ordered a book from the library about English paper piecing about two months ago and got all excited and printed and then cut out a bunch of hexagon templates. 

But I still felt a little overwhelmed by the process and worried that it would be sort of tedious.  

Lately though, I feel like I've seen so many hexagons around the blogosphere and on Flickr, I've started wondering if maybe, they're not so hard.

So Saturday night I searched for a tutorial on You Tube.
I found this, this and this which got me even more curious to try these little hexies out. 

(don't you love how easy technology makes thing now?)

I set to turning this...

Into this...

Which followed me around the rest of the weekend and turned into this..

and then this...

I pressed it and took out the papers and appliquéd it onto some soft, red, snuggly minkey fabric.  I've got a little bit more to do in the way of some machine embroidery and binding but I think this is going to be a SWEET and snuggly baby quilt for baby Claire.  Two down, one more to go!

This hexigon thing has really become addicting.  Its such a meditative thing to do.  For family home evening tonight we had our toddler lesson and then the mister and I snuggled up on the couch and listened to this while the chillins romped around on the floor and I basted some more hexies.

Then the boys moved on to the activity portion of the evening while I busied myself with my basket and enjoyed the show.

I sense a new addiction coming on....