Hexagon madness

We've lived in our new house almost two years and I still hadn't found a picture to hang above our bed. My daughter in law, Jannyne, gave me one of the One Block Wonder books for Christmas and loved the designs. She said if I wanted to make one, she'd help :-). The light bulb finally went on and the brainstorm hit to make one of these into a wall hanging for my bedroom. I took Jannyne to one of my favourite quilt shops, The Marsh Store, taking along a piece of the border fabric of my bed quilt and we came across this Laurel Burch fabric with exactly the right colours! So, some of that came home with me :-).

On Tuesday, Jannyne came over for the day and we cut out the triangles and started playing with the options. Here is Jannyne having fun laying out the blocks on the design wall:

We thought we'd add a few cubes into the mix possibly, so we bought some FQ's that blended nicely with the dancing horses. There was a lot of sun in the sewing room when I took this picture so the left is a little dark...there's a black, a burgundy and a navy blue FQ in there. At the top is the border of the bed quit and I also spotted some perfect King Tut variegated thread spools.


I got two cubes made while Jannyne laid out blocks. I will make more of these cubes in various colours and we'll have some options to play with:

Here are all the blocks so far on the wall. The instructions in the book were to sew the half hexagons together with the straight grain of the triangles to the outside. Since the fabric design is so linear, I took the triangles of the last strip and started sewing them differently to provide more variation. The three separated hexagons on the right side are done in the different orientation. One third of the blocks will be different. This is a really fun project to work on.

Jannyne is the one with the artistic eye, so she'll help me decide on the final layout. I tend to lay everything out symmetrical, so we're on a learning curve here LOL.

I'm up to 97!

I hosted a mini retreat at my place on Friday and Saturday and we accomplished a lot! Here are 12 of the arcs I started on Saturday and completed tonight.

I am now up to 97...only 23 to go!

Block of the Month

Our local small quilt guild is doing a block of the month for charity quilts. We choose a colour each month and everyone makes a block and brings it to the next meeting. One of the members takes the blocks home and puts them into a top and it is quilted and presented to the chemo unit at our local hospital. This was my November block for the red and white theme:

The December colour was blue and white. I didn't get mine finished in December so just finished it this week :-)


January's colours are red, black and white. I decided to add a black background to these red and white batiks since the white seemed to really wash them out.

....and we're up to 56

Worked on arcs on Tuesday with a bunch of friends for a whole day and in the evening with another friend. Yesterday afternoon I started 6 more and finished them off this afternoon. I am now up to 56 arcs finished. Half of them have the warm colour in the background and half the cool colour. They look very pretty in the buckets. 84 to go....it really isn't too bad once you get going :-).

I'm up to 32!

I think I have these arcs down to a science (or an art?). I've experimented with different ways of doing them and have it working pretty slick :-). Here are arcs #21 - 26

....and #27 - 32. That makes eighty-eight to go.

All of these arcs have at least one Kaffe Fasset fabric in them. Good thing each arc is different or it would get quite boring.

A doll party

My two friends and I met for our Christmas get together on Wednesday. We had plans to meet before Christmas and were snowed out both times! So, we finally managed to pick the one sunny day this week with no flurries in the forecast and had a great time. We have all been busy with dolls lately and brought them along so they could all meet each other :-). Don't they look like they're having fun? Click on the photo to enlarge it. The two tiny dolls at either end are Reliable dolls made in Canada. The left one on the chair is made in Italy. Many of the baby dolls are made by Zapf Creations.

Lynn made this cute little clothespin holder for me! Isn't it just the cutest?

I had made giant pin cushions for Lynn and Amy from the Moda bakeshop site. They are really cool and definitely giant!

Amy's pin cushion:

Lynn's pincushion:

My American Girl doll, Kit and Lynn's handmade doll:

Lynn's doll from her childhood! Her Mom made this dress for her with the same fabrics as a dress that she made for Lynn. What a treasure to still have this!

We went shopping at Value Village in the afternoon and found these cute clothes in the baby section (3 months size) which fit Lynn's Betsey Wetsey doll.

What fun!! We hope to get together one of these days and make clothes for our dolls. We have a huge collection of patterns between the three of us as well :-)

Indian Orange Peel Night in Canada......

We got together with six of us to work on our Indian Orange Peel homework on Tuesday evening. Now I don't know what to call our evening anymore....QNIC (Quilting Night in Canada) or PNIC (Peeling Night in Canada) or IOPNIC LOL. In any case, we did peel and got a few things done :-).

My treadle got a workout while I was sewing 8 arcs simultaneously:

Pat picked up this wonderful storage bin at the Bibles for Missions thrift shop on Tuesday. They are meant for storing Christmas decorations. There are two sets of two, but they snap onto each other....perfect for this project for taking along!

Pat and Gail busy sewing and cutting:

Deb's first arc that she did at the class:

Deb ironing fabrics for her four patches:

This project requires thinking!! Christine and Deb are contemplating something :-)

Christine's accomplishments of the evening:

You need to be well organized with this project and remain organized as well!

Christine:
Chris and Pat choosing fabrics for four patches:

Is this a warm colour or a cool colour?

We had four ironing stations set up and didn't blow any breakers!!

The arcs I worked on on Tuesday evening and completed this morning. Yikes, is that a warm background AND warm points arc I see on right side?

Did four more this evening, so I'm up to 20 altogether now. Next batch and I'll have less than 100 to go :-)