September 2024 Handwork

Completed Projects:

Exuberant Ellsworth Afghan

for Homeless Blanket Project

Finished afghan:  124 sts. in each row and 54 sets of tc/sc in length

On-going projects:

 Indigo Hexie Flower Quilt

39 appliqued onto indigo (that's +16)

3 pinned on, ready to applique

10 flowers ready for pinning

42 other hexies complete & ready to form into flowers

total flowers: 52 (up 15)     total hexies: 406 (up 107)

Grey Hexie Quilt

23 rows (x28) all sewn together = 644 hexies

1 row ready to add = 28 hexies

25 triples,  18 doubles,  86 single hexies waiting

841 HEXIES TOTAL (that's up 75 hexies)

Finnicky Freddy

Homeless Blanket #32

two row pattern - one row of triple crochet, next row of single crochet

pre-wound yarn of 2 short bursts of color, then longer burst of mediium sage

166 sts. per row

30 (set of 2: tc & sc) rows

Indigo Hexie Flower Quilt

 Once I got to Dede's and we went into Bay Quilts I got a brainstorm about how I want to finish my appliqued grandmother's flower garden quilt!  This is what they had displayed:

I instantly fell in love.

And I even want to slow stitch it!

So I started collecting indigo-colored quarter yard strips for my backgrounds.  Dede had six or seven scraps, and I purchased a handful more while I was in California, because OF COURSE we went to a quilt shop or two!

  I'll start with an 8-inch square, then cut it down to 7.5 or maybe even 7 inches unfinished after I've appliqued on my single-row hexie flower.

As of today, I've got 18 finished!

The new Ott Light I bought REALLY helps.  Appliqueing with thread as the same color of the flower worked best. It's so much fun and going really fast.

9/28/24

39 squares appliqued as of today

A Great Idea

I have a whole bucket full of batik hexies that I sewed together in a four-patch years ago without a clue about how I would eventually sew them all together.

Well, I saw this on someone's blog and I sat up straighter.....

Interesting ideas are forming in my tangled brain.......

Black & White Hexie Quilt

If I go back to blogs from March and April 2015, I can remember the first steps of this quilt, in Tucson.  I pulled it out today from a shelf in my PA home and decided to get started with it again.

Here's what I found sewn together, not much: (and there were 47 completed flowers in a lovely stack)

6/7/2020 Up to 182 hexies.  So much fun so far sewing this together!

6/11/2020  289 hexies

6/12/20 387 hexies.  I'm going to stop adding on too much for a day or two, I need to concentrate on getting a short stack of the horizontal diamonds ready to just grab and add.  I've got plenty of the 18-hexie flowers.  I'm loving the way this quilt looks!

6/14  New from-scratch elongated horizontal diamonds AND 523 hexies.

  

6/17 Sewing, sewing, sewing....660 hexies.....

6/21  797 hexies, slowly but surely.  Just received four more yards of white fabric, don't want to run out!

7/5/2020 917 hexagons.  Been sewing together lots of the diagonals with b/w center, and not doing too much to the quilt itself,  I'm down to 24 (out of original 50) larger flowers that are ready to go.  Guess I'm going to have to do some calculations so that I know how many more flowers and diagonals I have to prep.  Good for visiting, waiting in the car, sitting my the ducks, and other times away from home.

Will have to triple check these preliminary figures, but:

standard full size quilt: 84 x 90

width: 8 flowers across = 76.5 in.

9 flowers across = 85.5 in.

length: 10 flowers down should equal about 92 inches

I'm thinking 9 flowers across by 10 flowers down

Need 90 finished flowers total

That means making 40 more.....don't groan!

This is fun, right?

7/16/2020  Sewing, sewing, sewing.  1060 finished hexies included so far, with lots of new finished larger flowers and diagonals.... 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Here's a sketch of the different sewn-together blocks I want to have ready to pick up and add as I begin in earnest to sew this together:

Here's the photo of what I'd laid out on the wall in Tucson before I moved:

Rows of Gray Hexie Quilt

Tried this out to see how I liked it, so that I could use up random orphan hexies:

This is 20 rows  and measures 25 inches (wide) by 30 inches (long). 
This took just a bit less than one yard of gray fabric. 
There are 200 gray hexies and 90 orphans in this size.

8/20/2024

Well, I pulled this out again, looked for the extra gray fabric I bought, and started sewing more together while I was at Dede's at the beginning of the month.  As of today I have:

15.5 rows of 28 hexies sewn together (504 hexies total)

     NOT TOO BAD, but so many more to go.

I plan to iron it and take a new photo for the next update.

I also, at this time, have 68 triplet sets sewn together, 21 doubles, and 16 singles, totaling 262 hexies waiting to be added.   Grand total of 766 hexies prepped or already in quilt.

Ella's Flower Garden Hexie Quilt

Let's watch this sucker grow!

4/13/2020 This is where I left off a couple of years ago - 66 flowers joined.

4/14/2020  77 flowers

4/15/2020 84 flowers

4/17/2020 100 flowers and now a rectangle!

4/22/2020  130 flowers, my fingers are sore, but it's looking GOOD!  When I compare where I was and what it looked like nine days ago, I'm ecstatic!

4/27/2020 148 flowers, another row increasing width to 11 rows wide.

5/1/2020 160 flowers, adding a double row to the length, making it 15 flowers for the longest outside strip.... It's getting harder to photograph.

5/15/20 I think I finished the top...Ella, layed down with it and said it's perfect...let's hope so!  190 flowers total.

Now, how to finish it?

Dede's Christmas Hexie Table Runner: The Second in a Possible Series

This one's for Dede.  And although I have a lot of black fabric left, it's really hard for me to see to sew on it, AND because I don't think Dede would like the black (though she might) She loves reds and greens for Christmas, so I'll leave out the blues and purples that I love.  I found enough white to use on hers. Her table's a very long 90 inches, so this one'll have to be a long one!  So here goes.

4/1/2020
The first flower:

4/1/2020 A first day's progress  

4/2/2020 And at the end of the second day....time on my hands because I'm quarantined....Six flowers!

4/3/2020 Day 3 of cutting and sewing white hexies, then attaching.   The first photo is an idea for the future - making a round centerpiece...I think it looks cool.... but then I added more to continue this table runner.

And at the end of Day 3, here's where I was.  9 flowers...

4/4/2020 Day four of working on this table runner and Day 22 of the quarantine, I'm still making the white hexies like crazy and since I want to keep this mainly reds, greens, blacks, and whites, I also cut and made a few more flowers.  This will slow me down a bit, because before this i had a pile of already-made flowers to choose from.  Finished Season 3 of Travelers (the last one, unfortunately).  It's coming together quite nicely, I think. I must admit, my fingers are sore.  12 flowers!

4/5/2020 Day 5 and 16 1/2 Flowers!
I also sewed and pressed three strings of 9 hexies to attach to towels.

4/6/2020 Day 6 and 19 flowers...getting there!
I also appliqued two flowers to the fronts of potholder squares.

It's growing!

4/7/2020 Day 7 - 22 flowers
I'm now making new flowers...most of the previous sewing was done with flowers I'd already jointed.  Very sore right middle finger where my skin is getting tougher and tougher, lol!

4/8/2020 Day 8....25.5 flowers, and on I go!
     Running out of fabrics that make me happy, although I have 8 or 9 flowers that don't "do it" for me, so I'm hunting around for fabrics that work for me.

4/9/2020 Day 9 ... 27 flowers
     I decided that I want this to be at least 72" long, and that two flowers measure about 12  inches.  Therefore, I'll probably need anywhere from 12 to 14  flowers down the center, so many more.  I don't want to stop, because I really want to finish this, but I'm getting tired of it... that means either 4, 7, or 10 more flowers to go. I'm starting to groan.

4/11/20120 DAY 11 Finished the top!

4/17/2020 Ironed and ironed and ironed....took out all the outside papers and took to Deb Weigle to quilt!

Hexie & Crumb Quilted Potholders

I'm having fun making crumb blocks today, and decided to make them into potholders.  I was watching a few YouTube videos of different ways that people attempt  crumb quilting, when I came across these two ideas.  Love, love, love the idea of turning a hexie flower into a potholder!!!  My next project...

  

Thank you Laughing Duck, for both these ideas!

Christmas Hexie Table Runner - The FIRST!

I'm going to surround Christmas hexies in black, so they'll pop.  And I think I'm going to loosely base it on this:

As of today I have 35 flowers sewn together and ready to go.  Some of these have been swaps from my friends from Hexies and More.

And I just started on my black hexies, I basted 18 of them last night.  So, as of today, January 1st, I'm ready to start putting this together!

Let's watch it grow!

1/1/2020 first set of two hexies, looks good!

1/2/2020 Day two of sewing this lap quilt together:

1/3/2020  A couple more hours sewing black hexies....slowly but surely.....it's starting to look interesting....

1/6/2020  Got a little more done today and yesterday...

1/7/2019  Snowing tonight.  First snow of the year, so I guess I shouldn't complain.  Got a bit more stitching done.  It's growing! (The flower that looks pink isn't - it's thin red on white stripes.)

3/24/2020

I went on a hiatus for a couple of months, but have picked this up a couple of days ago, about a week into the coronavirus quarantine. 

     I'm up to 16 flowers, and wondering how long to make it.....

3/28/20  Finished the top!  Now to figure out how to quilt and finish it as a table runner!

5/13/2020

All quilted, faced, and finished, front and back: