Getting the green light

Participating in Rainbow Scrap Challenge is inspiring me in more ways than one.  

It's been 10 whole years since I started this blog and one of the first projects I blogged about were these English Paper Pieced hexagon flowers:

These little cuties measure just 1/2" on each side, and I had a lot of fun with fussy cuts and 1930's reproduction fabrics.  Back in 2009, I had a stack of 40 finished hexies, each with a yellow center.

I had always planned to make them into a table runner but instead, they had been stored away in the 30's fabric stash.  The idea of making lots and lots of white hexies to join them into a grandmother's flower garden was an intimidating prospect.

At this point, I can't help but think of that line from Beauty and the Beast:

Really?  Ten years!  

Then, along came the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and I noticed that Deb A of VT quilter was sewing up a selection of hexagons each month as part of her challenge.  She is appliqueing her hexie flowers to a solid background fabric instead of connecting them with additional hexagons.    I wondered if I could do the same.  I sorted out my hexies by color and took a look:

We have already done the color red, but I could work on the green for this month and still have orange, blue, purple and pink to work on in future months.

I decided I want the appliqued blocks to finish at 3 1/2 inches.

I cut white background squares to 5 inches to give me some wiggle room that I can trim later,  and appliqued my first green hexagon.

Over the course of the next week, I finished the applique on the rest of the greens:

I'm really looking forward to getting these hexagons sewn up and put together into a quilt.

And speaking of green hexagons...here is a handy wearable magnet that I use when doing handwork as a place to capture pins:

So... to Deb A. and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, thank you for getting me going again on these little lovelies.

Coming together

I've completed 49 hexies so far, and then I had to stop and start sewing them together because I ran out of paper pieces.  (To whom do I complain about a package of 50 papers that only contained 49?)

Right now I am sewing them in groups of two's and three's and seeing where it takes me.  As much as I love the 3 hexies with the fussy cut little girls, I don't think they will end up in this project, at least not on the outside.

I want to turn this into a tote and I don't want to look like I've swiped it from an unsuspecting little miss. ( I think they will make an appearance on the inside though.)

I'm linking up with Jessica at Life Under Quilts, who literally wrote the book on English Paper Piecing.

Hexagons take over

I started making hexagons to have something to do during the hockey games, but these hexies have taken on a life of their own.  I now have 37 hexies basted and ready to sew.

I thought I would like to make these into a tote like this one, so I started looking through my stash to see what fabrics I had that would coordinate.  I found these fabrics which I like

BUT,

I also found this fabric:

I just had to try a making a few hexagons featuring the little girls at play.

How could I resist? They were the perfect size for the 1 inch paper pieces I am using, and the colors were just right to go with the rest of the fabrics.

So now I have 3 little additions to my hexies so far.

See what I meant about taking on a life of it's own?  Stay tuned...

I'm linking up with Jessica at Life Under Quilts who literally wrote the book on English Paper Piecing.

Hexagons and .....Hockey?

With the Stanley Cup playoffs in full swing,  I've been keeping my husband company to watch the games on TV.  I only keep one eye on the game, and the other on some handwork.  Strangely, I didn't have a current project to work on, but I did have this set of charm squares:

I also had a package of paper hexagons for English paper piecing, so I grabbed them both and sat down to work.  Now I have a growing stack of these:

I'm not sure just where this is going, but I am having fun just making them.  There is not enough fabric  to make a traditional hexagon flower, so these will be stitched together in random style.

There's another game on tonight. More sewing time!

One Flower Wednesday

Another Wednesday has rolled around, and I have some progress to report. (Afterall, that's what the motivation behind "One Flower Wednesday" is all about, right?)

The green ones are made from the basted hexagons I showed in my last post, and the blue one is new from scratch.  I forgot how much fun it was to make the flowers with fussy cut hexagons.   Here are a few fussy cut hexies that I have already completed:

One Flower Wednesday

I have one new flower to show this week.  Pretty in pink with little dog bones.

The pink one is the only flower I have finished this week, but I also got several new sets of hexagons basted and ready to sew:

(I really need to get some more yellow centers ready)

For now, I have them stacked neatly in an eyeglass case.

The “One Flower Wednesday” group has really helped get me re-motivated to work on this project.  My original goal was a table runner that needed 29 flowers to complete.  I’ve made 30 flowers now, and want to keep going.  I need to find a bigger table…..

Summer pleasures

This weekend we took a road trip to visit my husband’s family.

My father-in-law has a large garden, and the raspberries were ripe for the picking.

There were so many raspberries that we had 3 baskets full in no time at all.

My father-in-law also grows grapes, although they were not yet ripe.

He has a lovely perennial flower garden too.  When I saw these little beauties:

I  couldn’t help but think of Grandmother’s Flower Garden:

Now I’m off to check out the cookbooks for a good recipe for raspberry pie….

New project

I have a quilting friend who is opening her own quilt store and she has asked me to make up some store samples of a pattern she designed.  I can’t show you the quilt top, but it involves some of these:

and a lot of these:
 
Since this is “One Flower Wednesday”, I thought I’d keep with the theme of blue and yellow and show you the blue flowers I have finished:

Back to the sewing machine….

The Garden is Growing

At last, my stack of hexagon flowers has a new bloom.

Here is the latest addition:

This is the same green fabric that I showed in last weeks photo:

I had forgotton that when I cut the fabric I had made sure that each one had a small red flower centered in the middle.  It was a very unexpected surprise as I began basting  them to see the fussy cut flowers being revealed.   (That's when I realized just how long it has been since I started this project.)

I am very glad that Karen decided to start One Flower Wednesday.  It was just the motivation I needed to get back to making these fun flowers.  If you visit her blog, you'll find links to lots of other bloggers who are also working on hexagon flower projects.

One Flower Wednesday

I didn't get as much done on my hexagon flowers this week as I had hoped, but I thought I'd show you my latest finish.

Hopefully, the purple and the green flowers-in-progress will be finished flowers by next Wednesday. 

Last month, Lori Holt at  Bee in my Bonnet  posted a two part tutorial on how she makes her hexagons.    I thought it was interesting the way she uses a paper clip to hold the fabric to the hex template while she bastes.

Hexagon Garden Party

Over a year ago, I started a Grandmother's Flower Garden table runner, made up of English paper pieced hexagons.  I blogged about it here and here.   At some point, the project got put aside for other things, mostly because I did most of my stitching in front of the TV at night, and suddenly I found myself with a sleeping puppy in my lap  instead of a needle and thread in my hands.

I have wanted to get back to the project and have found the perfect motivation....One Flower Wednesdays. Karen at Journey of a Quilter came up with the idea of  a weekly goal to make at least one hexagon flower per week, and to post your progress on Wednesdays.   She's calling it a Garden Party and has invited anyone working on a hexagon project to join in.  You can find a link to her post about the project in my sidebar if you'd like to join the party.