Hexagon Quilt Update

   I have finished another block in my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt.  I have two done now.  Only 33 more to make.  😎  I have been taking my sweet time with this project.  No rush.  I have plenty of quilts to keep my warm when the weather turns cold.

 

   I received the yarn for my Hotel of Bees Shawl on Friday and I wound all nine skeins into yarn balls so they are ready to use.  I should take a picture of my yarn.  I also took some time to read through some of the pattern last night.  I don't know when I will start this project, but I want to finish my Christmas hanging dishtowels before I start this.  I still have two dishtowels to embroider.  Once they get the embroidery done I have to make the top part.  I didn't get a chance to finish the embroideries on the last two towels this past weekend because . . . 

   I spent a lot of the weekend buying mulch for my large flower bed in the front of the house.  I have a small car so I can only buy 4 bags of mulch at a time.  I made four trips to the home improvement store buying mulch Friday night and Saturday morning to get enough mulch to cover this space.  I used 15 bags of mulch in this space.  I swear my roses look happier since I put the mulch down. 

   

   

Christmas Is Coming, Believe It Or Not

    I thought I would get an early start this year.  I hate giving Christmas gifts, I have a hard time deciding what to give anyone.  I do know that my daughter and my brothers like the hanging dish towels that I make, so that's what I will make to give to them.   I will make five of these pretty dish towels and I should have them all finished by next week.

    I bought the fabric and the towels for this project last month.  I bought two huge white tea towels and cut them into quarters.  I hemmed the one cut side on my sewing machine and then I put the towel into the hoop to add the embroidery to it.  I only got one embroidery made tonight but I love it.  I will embroider the rest over the weekend then I can start adding the fabric toppers to each one.

    Here's the embroidery design I'm using on the towels.

     This makes a nice break from hand sewing hexies.  I really miss my sewing machine when I'm doing a hand sewing project.  I love pressing down on the foot pedal of the machine and sewing at full speed.

Hotel Of Bees Crochet Shawl Project

   The Hotel of Bees shawl pattern was making the rounds earlier in the year.  I heard really good reviews of how well written the pattern was and I saw some beautiful finished shawls in youtube videos and on Ravelry.

   I ordered my copy of the pattern about a month ago.  I spent some time trying to find the yarn I wanted to use.  The designer made her sample with a cotton/acrylic blend yarn and I was trying to find a similar yarn  I found Knit Picks Comfy in Sport weight and ordered it this morning in three different colorways.  Three skeins of Peony (dusty pink), three skeins of Parchment (a natural color), and one skein of flaming0 (light pink).

   While I'm waiting for my yarn, I have printed the pattern (14 pages)  and I'm going to give it a good read.

Making Paper And Fabric Pieces For My Hexagon Quilt

I'm making my own hexagon paper pieces to use in my current quilt project.  In my last project I used old greeting cards and some junk mail and my Fiskars paper punch to make my hexagon paper pieces.  I also made some of my papers out of a heavy 110 lb. 8.5" x 11" white cardstock and those papers lasted the best and I was able to reuse them much longer than the others.  So I'm using the cardstock in this project.  The Fiskars paper punch is labeled an extra large, (I bought it on Amazon a couple of years ago) the sides measure 1" and the longest measurement from one point to another is 2".   I can punch out 20 hexies of this size from one sheet of this size cardstock.  I like to have lots of the papers available so I can baste enough hexies to make more than one flower at a time.

At this stage I cut the edges off leaving a piece big enough to punch out an additional 6 hexies.

All of my yellow centers are basted and ready to have flowers created around them.  This is all the fabric hexies basted.  

Time to cut more fabric.  To cut the fabric, I use a paper hexie with a 1/4" seam allowance added to it and I trace the shape onto the back of the fabric and I cut out each one with my trusty Gingher scissors. 

Here is a picture of the back of my hexies in my first block of this quilt.  I basted the hexies with blue thread so it's easy to find and remove when I take the papers out.  This block is ready to have the paper removed from the yellow, orange and pink pieces.  I leave the papers in the green ones until I have another block added to it.

Here are some hexies I made and put together.  I want to use these as a decoration on a bag in the future.

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A Slow Start To My Slow Stitching Project

   I finally started my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt.  I started this on a day I spent at the beach with dear daughter and friends.  I knew I wasn't going to be swimming in the Gulf and that I wanted to spend my time on the beautiful deck with a sea breeze and some hand stitching.  I finished my first flower for my new Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt during that beach trip.  I have since added the green path.  I am totally in love with this project.  I can't wait to see more of these lovely flowers appear.

  The green fabric almost looks minty or blueish, it's not. I tried to get a good picture using my faux Ott Light.    I will try to get a picture where the colors are more life like on a day with more sun.  We have had some rain the last couple of days and it's hard to get a good picture indoors.

    I was kind of worried about the pink and orange clashing but it looks stunning in this picture.  I originally bought a very pale yellow for the center, but I changed that to a bright yellow when I saw how dark the orange and pink are and I'm so glad I did.

   So there you have it, the beginning of a another quilt top.