Sunday, July 25, 2010

Back from the Beach

Hey friends!

It's been awhile....

I've been at the beach with family and friends all weekend soaking up the sun, spending time with the babies in the family which renewed my desire to have children in the near future, and just taking a break from my normal life which is nice to do sometimes.

I got to spend a lot of time with my brother Michael and his girlfriend Samantha, I got to swim and play in the sun, I started working on a hand-sewing project, and I FINALLY successfully got my nephew Benjamin to go to sleep. Ben is 9 months and even though I have tried many, many times this was the first time I didn't have to give someone else a try. I don't remember it being that hard with his brother Coleman.

My hand sewing project deserves a post of it's own because it's that neat but I'm pretty tired tonight so I'm just going to have to make this short and sweet.

I have the hexi-bug! I read several modern quilting blogs and many of them have been bitten as well. I have enjoyed looking at their projects so much that I decided I would give it a try as well. I am using  the English paper piecing method and doing this all by hand. I am hoping to make a cool accent pillow for my girly guest room. This was the perfect project to bring with me in the car and to the beach because each hexagon required a small amount of fabric, had lots of room for error, and is something I can pick up and put down easily.


a. Template made from heat resistant Mylar. I used "c" to trace the hexagon onto the Mylar and then used a ruler to trace 1/4 inch allowance
b. Finished hexagons. The paper pieces were placed against the "wrong" side of the fabric and the edges were basted down over the paper pieces using the 1/4 inch seam allowance I left myself
c. My 1" hexagon paper pieces (one large pack of 600 was $30)
d. My unfinished hexagons cut from scraps I had laying around from different projects
e. 3 hexagons hand sewn together. The paper will stay in until I have hand sewn all of the hexagons together

I taught myself the "quilter's knot" for this project which reminds me of the fisherman's knot my dad tried to teach me a long time ago. I used 50 weight 100% cotton thread in white. most of the fabric is Amy Butler but I have a little Tina Givens in there and some of the pinks I used in Leslie's Loves Pink

The paper pieces were a bit on the expensive side so I am going to look around to see if I can find a Cricut cartridge that has a hexagon.

I am honored and humbled that 8 of you have decided to follow my blog using Google Connect. I am not sure how many more of you are out there who use an RSS reader. If you're out there, let me know! I'd love to hear your comments or suggestions.

Happy Quilting!

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