WiP: Portable Project

Well, all of my free time is currently being spent basting and piecing hexies.  I knew it would be like this and I am certain the new will wear off soon and progress will be less consuming and productive (I still have those charity baby quilts to finish.)

I've gotten my stitching rhythm back and can baste a hexie in less than a minute.  I cut out several hexagons at a time, then stitching several at a time. 

For my 3/4" hexagons, I cut a strip 2 1/4" wide WOF.  That gives me enough    hexies for the eight inner pieces and almost enough to finish the 16 outer pieces (which would make part of two different "flower" sections.) 

The hexagons are suppose to have 1/4 inch to turn back for basting.  I cut mine from squares sized roughly 2 1/4"x2 1/4".  I willy-nilly snip off the corners and allow myself at least 3/8 inch edge for turning under.  See how the shape is kind of wonky?  Works just fine as long as it's more than 1/4 inch.

Yesterday, I thought I was having trouble with blood clots (again!)  I ended up spending most of the day in the ER waiting for a Doppler ultrasound.  Having done this before, we knew we'd be there for hours.  We packed water bottles, snacks and something to occupy the time. 

Let me back up a bit.  For my birthday last week, Byron got me a Marie Osmond craft tote.  If you are a gadget person, it's THE best!  It has everything except for a place to sleep.

On the outside, there are 12 medium-sized pockets, 1 large pocket and 3 divided sections in the middle.  My hexie supplies and personal items fit in there perfectly.

Hazy Blackberry pictures

While I waited in the lobby, I basted hexagons.  While I waited in the ER hospital bed, I basted and pieced hexagons.

How long did we spend in the ER?  I joked that it was 'one hexagon flower worth.'  I basted and pieced this puppy.

Since I've been basting in the evening for a few nights, here is what I have sewed up so far.


3 finishes 'flowers,' 2 unfinished inner flowers and some wild hexies
Those gray ones in the forefront are what I will use to separate and surround
all of the diamond shapes

 The blood clots?  Oh, yea!  The results don't show anything new, so that part is good.

 Okay, you are updated.... and I am back to basting, bye-bye!

My First Hexie

Didn't this turn out to be an amazing picture from my goofy little $100 Kodak?

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started sewing this.  I picked up a hexagon paper and the first piece of fabric I saw and started stitching.

My enthusiam was spurred when I got my .75" hexagons in the mail--all 750 of them!  When I saw them, they seemed so small.  I was worried that I had ordered the wrong size, but have since learned this is one of the most common sizes (did I know that when I ordered? who knows!)

I'm getting used to their size.  I am not used to the handstitching the hexies together.  I find it a little hard to get the stitches through the front hexie and back hexie.  But that's getting better too. 

I have also decided that I am following the pattern of Martha Washington's Flower Garden.  And I'm hooked.

Hexie Madness

I've done it... I'm getting on board with the hexie insanity that's sweeping the quilting globe. It'll be the traditional English paper-piecing method.  I ordered my 3/4 inch precut, reusable hexies from Paper Pieces (their price was best.)

I'm going to make Grandmother's Flower Garden, but I can't decide whether to: 1- do traditional colors and design with modern fabrics, 2- just blow off all semblance of tradition, even making different sized flowers or 3- meet somewhere in the middle. Any votes on that?

My quilt will NOT--nor never shall be--any of the ludicrousness of 1/4 inch hexies.  That sort of absolute insanity is the first cousin of postage stamp madness and incurably hopeless (TSQ is the closest I will come to these madnesses.)


the article notes there are a mere 60,000 pieces in this
king-sized quilt, give or take a few =O

There are so many appealing notions about handmade hexies for me. First, it's an old, old way to quilt.  Quilt historian, Barbara Brackman noted, "...many women who never made another quilt finished a Grandmother's Flower Garden."



from womenfolk.com/

  Secondly, the Gran's Garden charm is simply irresistible.  Face it: every aspect of hexies is just fun--unless you are trying to cut all of them by hand or without precut, precise pattern--but that's not happenin' here!  The potential is so exponential that you could  ruminate on the possibilities for the rest of your days, LOL!

Lastly, it's a portable project.  You can make hexies at home, say when you are 'watching' the baseball game or 'man movie' with the hub.  That's the time to choose fabrics, cut and baste.  Then you put them all in your portable pouch.  Then when you are sitting and waiting, you can whip them together. 

I guess a fourth appeal for me is the stash-busting potential, or at least frugal stash building.  You can add in a 'must have' new fabric by purchasing no more than a fat quarter or fat eighth, instead of buying up expensive yardage.  Another economy factor: it's a great way to use up leftover bits from other projects.  The quilt can literally become a textile scrapbook of your life's story.


see the hexies on this bag in the latest issue of Stitch?
(click on pic to go to magazine's site)

Just a few hexies sew on as embellishment are really cute, not to mention uber-trendy!  There's probably some of those hexies in my future.  For the big quilt, I imagine this is another nearly lifelong WiP.  You can follow my adventures as well as those of a few hundred other interweb friends at Flickr.

Last of all...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!
(yes, tha's right: anniversary, mother's day and birthday always falling within the period of one week. people always asked why i did that--should result in at least one nice gift :)