Hexie Queen Blog Hop

Welcome to my little stop on the Hexie Queen Blog Hop!
I was really humbled when Madame Samm contacted me asking if this rainbow hexie quilt was actually mine.  It was. :)

A friend had sent her a picture from Pinterest, and she wasn't sure how to get to the original blog post and quilter. She found me, though! :)  She told me all about the Hexie Queen Blog Hop, and it sounded like SUCH  fun blog hop that I jumped in feet first! :)

So one Saturday, when I was supposed to be working on a million other things, including potty-training Little Bird, I decided to start my hexie quilt instead. She helped. ;)  A couple of years ago, I participated in 5 rounds of the Hexie Swap on Flickr, and one round was all solids, so I had about 50 pre-cut hexagons, just waiting for a project! They were cut with the Accuquilt Go cutter, and they're perfect for a quick project like this!

Once Little Bird and I had decided on the colors we wanted to use, I set her free with her own stack of hexagons so she could make "her own" quilt. She didn't really do much with hers, but it gave me the chance to get mine all laid out. :)

Once I had the layout I liked, I adhered the hexies to the top of the 44" square of Kona White. I used the same method I used when I did my first hexie quilt. I sprayed the back with spray baste, and pressed it down with my hand. If I needed to adjust it, I could.

The next step was to heat set the hexies in place with a hot iron. I used a random scrap of fabric to protect my iron from any overspray of glue.

The beauty of heat-setting them this way is that when I inevitably had to put the quilt away, I could go away trusting that the hexagons wouldn't move a millimeter. And little hands couldn't move them, either. Security is a good thing when you've got curious little helpers around the house! :)

A couple of hours later, I was able to come back to the quilt. I raw-edge appliqued each hexagon in place with a straight stitch 1/4" in from the edge. I didn't want to stitch over any other stitches, so I stopped where I started, and tied a knot on the underside of the quilt top.

When the quilt top was finished, I just felt like singing! It felt soooooo good to put the must-do list aside and just follow the inspiration for once!

And then it came time to quilt it. I had a hundred ideas (and two more after I started, ain't that always the way!), but I went with a straight line between opposite hexagons, and then a spiral throughout the whole quilt.

Spiral quilting takes foreeeevvvvvvvvvvver! :) And this is a small quilt! I can't imagine doing it on a larger quilt. Sheesh!

Here's Little Bird claiming "her quilt" once again. :) I've never made a quilt just for the fun of it, so I've never had the chance to have one of my children claim it as their own. I'm not sure if she really thinks this is for her, but, other than it being a bit small for a 3 year old, there isn't any reason I can't give it to her! :) Plus, then I would get to enjoy it, too! ;)

Do you know this trick when you're attaching your binding to your quilt? I either wrap my binding around a pencil or an old thread spool, and then stick it on the extra thread stand on my sewing machine. It really helps keep the binding straight and orderly while I'm attaching it. Sure beats the pile of binding I used to have on the floor!

Here she is again! This time she is tracing the quilting lines with a play-doh cutter. :) Maybe she's just as attracted to rainbow quilts as I am... ;)

Uh oh! Buzz is making his move! Move over, sista! This one's MINE! ;)

It's hard to tell in this picture, but I backed it with a random yellow-and-white polka dot fabric I had. I'm happy to use something that I already had on hand. Going to the fabric shop with 3 little ones is NOT fun! For anyone! :)

You can see the quilting a little better here, I think. I realize it looks a bit like a spider web, but c'est la vie. I like it. And I have an even greater respect for spiders now! This web was TOUGH to weave!

I hope you enjoyed learning about my little hexagon quilt. Where else have you been on this Hexie Queen Blog Hop? Here is a list of the others that are posting today. If you haven't already been, you should go visit their blog! I am confident inspiration awaits. :)

Life@RuffHaven 

Pieced Brain 

Den Syende Himmel 

Creatin’ in the Sticks

Meadowbrook 

Sandra Kaye Designs 

Let’s Patch it Up

Sew Many Yarns

Around the Homestead

Sew Mollie Sue, Quilt Much? 

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you enjoyed my little hexie project! :)

Palace Steps Tutorial - {Faith Circle} August 2013 Quilt

What am I doing? I'm kinda sitting here in shock! I can't believe it is August tomorrow! But it is, and it's my turn to design and quilt a quilt for the {Faith} Circle of the do.Good Stitches bee. I really like to keep the blocks simple. And the piecing simple. I've had to make complicated, convoluted, time-consuming blocks before, and while they look lovely, I don't think the person who receives that quilt will be any more blessed than the person who receives a quilt made with simple blocks. Amen? :)

So I spent some time the other night looking at different books and magazines, and came across the "Tumbling Down" block by Kim Deihl in Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, Vol 4. I like the look of the finished quilt, but didn't like the idea that we would have to piece together a bunch of tiny squares. So I decided to modify it just a smidge, and instead of using squares, we will use strips.

Here is a mock-up of the finished quilt:

Modern, simple, bright, a blessing...I hope so! :)  We give quilts to Restore Innocence, which is an organization that provides assistance, housing, counseling and mentoring to young women rescued from sex trafficking all over America. They don't give a quilt to every girl rescued, mind you, but they do give them to girls that stay in the program. We have given them 6 quilts so far, and there are about 5 more in the works. :)

We will need two different orientations of block to achieve the ombre effect. Here are EQ7 mock-ups of each block. The finished size is 12.5" tall x 24.5" wide. Members of the circle will only have to make one block (woohoo!), and use 16 pieces of fabric. I think that qualifies as "simple"! :)

Block Orientation A (Stitchers will make this one)

And Block Orientation B (Quilters will make this one)

See how they're opposite? THAT is how it works! :)

So here's where the tutorial starts.

I hope it makes sense, and PLEASE ask questions if you have any! I'd much rather answer a question now than anyone have to remake a block later. :(  Also, I am humble enough to admit that there more ways to make a block than my way. If you want to do it differently to achieve the same result, go for it! :)

Everyone will cut the same fabric.

1. Collect 6 pieces of varying shades of yellow (could be print or solid, but please be sure that it reads yellow).  Arrange them from darkest to lightest, and label them alphabetically from A (darkest) to F (lightest). 
2. Cut one strip from each yellow that is 2.5" wide by 14.5" long.
3. Now pick your gray solid. It needs to be a solid, and please keep it medium gray or lighter. The brand doesn't matter, but please use the same gray throughout your block. Kona grays that work are Medium Gray, Ash, or Iron. I don't have a color card for other brands, but just keep them on the light-to-medium side. :)  You will need a total of 2 2.5" x WOF strips that you will cut.
4. Cut strips of gray (2.5" wide) according to the following list. Cut two (2) of each: 10.5", 8.5", 6.5", 4.5", 2.5"  It's a total of 64" of gray fabric.

Here is a picture of my grays and yellows:

Remember, you need TWO of each measure of gray, you just can't see it there because they're stacked together.

Here's a picture of my gray strips glue-basted to my yellow strips for Block A:

Stitchers, for Block A, you should attach your gray strips as follows, identical to mine. 

A -- 10.5" on right side (nothing on the left)
B -- 2.5" on left side, 8.5" on right side.
C -- 4.5" on left side, 6.5" on right side
D -- 6.5" on left side, 4.5" on right side
E -- 8.5" on left side, 2.5" on right side
F -- 10.5" on left side

The Quilters will do it opposite, and make Block B, to achieve the ombre effect. And for those of you who might still be reading, wanting to make this quilt, you should make 6 like that above, and 4 like this below:
Here's a picture again. :)

A -- 10.5 on the left side (nothing on the right)

B -- 8.5" on the left side, 2.5" on the right side
C -- 6.5" on the left side, 4.5" on the right side
D -- 4.5" on the left side, 6.5" on the right side
E -- 2.5" on the left side, 8.5" on the right side
F -- 10.5" on the right side.

Make sense? I hope so!! I sure hope so!! :)

Then press your seams, and sew Strip A along the long side to Strip B, and C to D, and E to F, then A/B to C/D, and then E/F to the bottom of A/B/C/D, and it should be perfect! You shouldn't need to even trim it! It should finish to 24.5" wide, and 12.5" high. Done!

See? Block A. Easy!

I hope you find this easy, and rewarding. Please please PLEASE let me know if you have any questions! :)

I'm linking up with Lee of Freshly Pieced, and her regularly-scheduled {WiP}Wednesday party. :)

Please note. As I stated, I was inspired by Kim Diehl's block. I have never seen a block like this, or a quilt like this. If someone else has already made one, I am happy to link to that quilt, although I won't say I was inspired by them. Because I wasn't. :) If you would like to notify me of another block or quilt like this, please feel free to email me at the address listed in my profile. Thank you for being polite.

{WiP} Wednesday ~ 29/52

I'm this close to finishing my do.Good Stitches quilt. I finally pieced the back the other day and spent less than 2 hours quilting it - and that includes thread and bobbin changes! Stippling is the way to go when you need a fast finish!

All that's left is the label, really. Last night I finished the binding -- it was magical!!! I used Susie's Magic Binding technique, demonstrated here on my friend Marti's blog. I stink stink stink at machine binding, so I wanted to try this, thinking maybe this will work and it won't look like something the dog rolled in!  And it does! It does! It DOES!!

Here is a picture of the purdy mitered corner...

And here you can see the front and the back. Honestly, this is the closest-thing-to-perfect my machine binding has EVER looked!!

I'll put a label on it this week, and take it to Restore Innocence.  They were very appreciative the last time I took them some quilts, and I know they are so happy to bless the girls with these quilts. :)

And then I'll put my sewing machine away. I've got a lot going on this weekend, and sewing isn't going to be a part of it. :(  But then next week, I will put on a brave face and make Janice's paper-pieced blocks for our Bee Happy bee. I'm only marginally better at paper piecing than I am at machine binding!  

And I've designed a few quilts that I am SUPER eager to make! Aunt Spicy is my partner in crime on these, and keeps encouraging me to make more! What a friend, right?!? And I loved getting back to the long arm. It seems I'm prolific at the first and last steps of the quilting process, but I'm a slow turtle at actually MAKING the quilts! I need to get faster. I have two baby quilts to make, and only know the gender of one of them. If the unknown is a boy, then I'll give my Huckleberry quilt I made when Latifah Saafir was here in May. If it's a girl, I'll do something quick and easy and double the recipe. ;-)

I am linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced. Go check out the linky party. There's some beautiful stuff being made!

{WiP} Wednesday ~ 28/52

I am very aware of how blessed I am - and how much I take for granted. Really, I am. My life is FULL. Busy. Blurry from all the activity, really, and I know that will only get worse as the kids get older. But it's a good busy, a good full. I know that.

But it's exhausting, too. As an introvert, having 3 people in my face, on my leg, on my hip all day long can add to the exhaustion. So when they're all finally in bed, and the house is quiet, it's my time. My time to sew, or blog, or catch up on blogs, or read.

What? Read? What's that? :)

I'm just saying that it's all good. I wish I had time to sew more, and blog more, but the most important thing I can do every day is take care of my family. I know that. It's tiresome, but it's the right thing to do, and it's what I want to do! But I also want to be creative and productive and make this gigantic to-do list just an eensy bit smaller! :)  That being said, I'm hoping to put a bit of normalcy back into my life, because it's been far from normal lately!

We just got back from a week in LA, visiting friends, visiting the LA MQG, visiting with some of my Bee Happy hive, going to Disneyland...for THREE days... ugh!

We've been home for 2 days now, and we're still trying to get back to normal and acclimate! It's not like we've got jet-lag, really...it's more like vacation-lag! :)

This is what I sewed just before we left. They are called Starburst Cross blocks, and they are for the Faith Circle of the do.Good Stitches bee. The tutorial is by Sew Crafty Jess., and it's going to be a stunning quilt! I just love the bright colors!

And then we left for California. It was a GREAT trip, really. Not long enough!

I took over a thousand pictures over the course of the week, but I won't hit you with all of them. I need to do a separate blog post about the whole trip just so I can remember it all! :)

Here are a few of my favorites, though.

Hugging Cinderella after they twirled together in their dresses (Ramona was kind enough to let us borrow Bean's dress for the day!)

Waving back at Rapunzel who waved first. Starstruck. :)

Here's Buzz at the Mickey and the Magical Map show -- he was mesmerized!!

Our Disneyland passes had a blackout day on July 4th, so we went to the beach instead. It had been a very long while since Mookie had been to the beach, and I don't believe Sprout had ever been! And I know Buzz hadn't ever been! :)

Mookie really enjoyed the water, Sprout enjoyed the sand, and Buzz didn't really enjoy any part of it!

We went to California Adventures the next day, and after we had a spontaneous rendez-vous with Mr The Mouse himself...

...we headed for Monsters, Inc. Here's Buzz practicing his scream. It sounded a wee bit like his tiger roar, but it was darn cute! 

Then after lunch, Dave took Mookie on the Grizzly River Run (think Thunder River...)  She had a blast!

And on the third day, Dave and I split up so he could take Mookie on more big kid rides, and I could keep it simple with the little ones. We happened to see Rapunzel in her tower, which was kind of amazing.

Unfortunately, most of those pictures didn't turn out because, not surprisingly, it's kind of hard to manage an active one-year old while a three-year old meets her all-time favorite princess!

In the afternoon, we got to meet Tinkerbell, which was equally amazing, and equally hard to photograph! Honestly, I think the girls were kinda done having to smile for all the paparazzi! :) (they get that from their father...)

And then on Sunday we went to church and then spent some time with friends from church, and got ready for the journey home on Monday :(  Sad and exhausting journey home.

Yesterday was a lazy, lazy day recovering from our wonderful trip, but last night I needed to really get down to business on the aforementioned gigantic to-do list, so I made my July blocks for the Faith Circle. This time it's Modern Cross Blocks, featured by Faith of Fresh Lemons in her Summer Sampler Series.

And tonight, I've got one more bee block for June, and I've got to piece a back, and maybe even get it loaded onto the long arm. Wouldn't THAT be grand!

It feels great to link up with Lee at Freshly Pieced. Go see what others are doing, and have a great week!

Quilt Marking Tools Put to the Test

So after an interesting conversation on Instagram, I decided to throw all my cares to-do-list to the wind, and conduct another (non) scientific test of the tools I have and like to use.

This is BY NO MEANS a comprehensive test, this is just me messing around, sharing my not-so-scienfitic results with you.

This pictures shows the fabric and the tools I used.

I used Kona White and Kona Charcoal as the fabrics (because they were close), and the tools were: blue Mark-B-Gone pen, white Crayola colored pencil, white Dressmaker's Marking Pencil, yellow Crayola colored pencil, black Frixion pen.

In this picture, I simply spritzed the fabric with water to show what disappears. Or smears... :)

Here I scrubbed the fabric to simulate washing. Obviously it would be a bit better with washing, but I didn't want to take the time to do that. :)

You can see the white marks disappeared from the Charcoal fabric, and the yellow and black Frixion marks smeared and did nothing.

Here's a close-up after scrubbing to show that the yellow was almost gone, and that you can't see any other marks - colored pencil or Frixion pen. Remember that...

Oh, I ironed it! Lookie lookie!

And here it is after being in the freezer (or a cold car in the winter) for 5 minutes:

Hmmm....not the best results....

And then I ironed it a second time:

So, I didn't take process pictures, but I decided to see what would happen if I scrubbed and rubbed it with soap, trying, mostly, to get the yellow colored pencil out.  I then ironed it (to dry it, really), and froze it again. Here it is after 10 minutes in the freezer:

I think all the marks are much less noticable after this, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

I will say this. Last February, I made a quilt for Kelly's baby, Tucker, and used the Frixion pen to mark all my quilting lines -- then hardly sewed directly on them at all! And I used it to figure out what I was going to write on the label, then changed it. I thought the Frixion pen would disappear forever at that point, but learned later that it doesn't. I asked Kelly yesterday, and she said she hasn't seen ANY marks on Tucker's quilt, and she's washed it multiple times. She lives in Florida, though, so the quilt probably hasn't seen freezing temperatures... :)

So, that's it!!

PLEASE feel free to share what kind of marking tools you like to use, and why. I know all 12 of my readers will be happy to find a good one! :)

{WiP} Wednesday ~ 24/52

I love sewing. Really I do. I just don't feel like I get to do enough of it!

Or, maybe I should say that I don't feel like I get to do enough enjoyable sewing. And it feels like whatever free time I do have is spent doing something other than enjoyable sewing!  It's just not fair!! :)

But this weekend, I had the chance to spend some quality time with my sewing machine, and a WiP that has been languishing on my design wall for quite some time. Quite. :)

You'll recognize it. From March!  This was my quilt for the Faith Circle of the do.Good Stitches bee of March. I got most of my blocks back in March, but there were a couple of people who didn't send them until well into April. And by the time I did get them and was able to sew a couple of rows together, it was May and things got cray-hay-hay-zee!!  ;)

So...I finally got to take it off my design wall and put it together on Sunday.  Unfortunately for me, I didn't quite remember what I had done the first time, and so I had to spend a little time figuring out where to go next. No big deal. It's sewing...I can figure it out. :)

Except I didn't do a very good job of figuring it out.  See that big X there on the left? It's not supposed to be there! And because it's there, that whole column is off, making the entire look of the quilt...off.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm NOT a perfect quilter. No way, no how.  I rarely even seek perfection! I seek quality construction (don't want it to fall apart in the wash!), and I seek a good visual image, but I don't seek perfection!  If only this little block was turned, and the rest of the rows of wonky zig zags looked fine, then I would totally leave it! But it ruins the lines of the whole quilt, I think.

So, thankfully it's on the end, I just ripped out 3 seams, and now I have to flip it around and sew it back together.

The right way. No biggie.  :)  I had hoped to have it quilted in time for our Front Range Modern Quilt Guild meeting on Saturday, but I highly doubt that's gonna happen. Maybe I'll just show them the flimsy.

Other than that, I've got a couple of bee blocks to make, and I really want to start a new quilt from my 13 in 13 (quilts to make in 2013) list. I've made 2. And it's June. Well...3, once this one is finished, but it's not on my 13 in 13 list! 

Oh, and I currently know of 5 of my friends who are pregnant, so I guess I best be figuring out how to...wait. Scratch that. 6. Six pregnant friends. I need to be busting out some baby quilts, man!  :)

You know what? Summer is busier than I thought it was going to be! Having 3 active little kids to entertain all day every day is exhausting!

{WiP} Wednesday ~21/52

Look!!

I sewed something!!  It's the Bouncy Flouncy dress designed by Ramona Rose! :)

(I also bought the Beatiful Mess app. You did, too, didn't you? :) )

Life has been superdy-superdy crazy around here!!

On May 9th, I picked up a very special guest, Latifah Saafir, for a lecture/workshop combination. 

I made this Huckleberry Quilt at the workshop. :). I'm in the lower right corner, and I think I'm going to call it my "kindergarten quilt" because of the prints ("Recess" by American Jane) and because the technique to piece in the circles involves the classic kindergarten lesson of cut-and-paste. :-)

(Here is a picture of all of us. I think 11 of the 13 people at the workshop finished their quilt tops at the end of the class. Which...is phenomenal!  Latifah is SUCH a great instructor!)

I love it and already have plans and fabric for a second! :)

I haven't quilted since before Latifah was here, though, so this is still a WiP. :-/

But I made that ROCKIN' Bouncy Flouncy dress by Ramona Rose (pattern is HERE on Craftsy). If I can make it, ANYONE can! (I put the idiot in "idiot-proof" and her pattern is very idiot-proof!)

And there's loads more going on, too. 

We have had two girlie birthdays, one big party, one preschool concert, a couple of grown-up get-togethers, and we are making Project Life albums for each of my daughter's teachers as an end-of-year gift from all the students. That and a box of tissues. :-)  I was actually getting misty-eyed today because I am going to miss these teachers, and then I realized DUH, I've got two more kids to go through that preschool with those teachers! I've got 4 more years! There ain't no missing them! :)

So, that's that. That's what I've been up to. TOO doggone MUCH!!  And more to do, still.  Have a great and crafty week!

I'm linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday with Janice at Better Off Thread, who also made a BouncyFlouncy dress.