Quilt Studio 62

OK…so it is Monday night, not morning :).  I actually made a lot of progress this week, but not without a few challenges.

Then, on Friday night I put the grandkids in bed and sat down to stitch. I stitched up a storm and about 11pm, I made this mistake.  Has anyone else ever done this?  For all the times I worried maybe hand-stitching wouldn’t hold up, I take it all back – it took quite a bit of working to rip this out!  I am glad I only stitched one wrong!

So even with the setbacks, I finished adding the 3 background hexagons to 18 flowers.

I counted all of my basted hexies – I have 530, which is way more than I thought I had.

This week I am heading back to making hexagon flowers and cutting more background fabric so I can be ready to stitch the 3 background hexies on a new set.

Phew…..I have never gotten so much done in a week!

I am linking up with Jessica at Life Under Quilts for the Monday Morning Star Count and hoping for inspiration to keep focused and make progress!  This is my very first English Paper Piecing project and I am in love with the method and the simplicity and relaxation that it brings.  I started this project this past summer.

I chose Bonnie & Camille’s Marmalade line for the hexies.  I will be making a quilt, but have not figured out the finished size yet.  I will do a full tally for next week’s post 🙂 and that may help be figure out the size.

Right now I have completed basting about 300 – 1 1/2″ hexies – this is just one box of them.  

Here are some of the hexagon flowers completed:

For placement, I used Jessica’s concept from the diamonds tutorial, and add three hexies in the surrounding fabric.  This allows me the chance to play with placement.  I have only completed the main section that I will use to build off.   I have about 15 sections to add the 3 plain hexies to and then I will need to figure out what size I want to make the quilt.

Well, it sure is fast quilting this way!  I believe I spent a total of five hours quilting this top.  Three hours last week and two hours today.  I think Grace, Jane, and I are going to be friends for a very long time!

Last weekend I finally decided it was time to stop practicing and actually load a quilt on my Grace frame and get started quilting with my Babylock Jane.

And here is a picture of my first row of stitching.  I chose a random loopy pattern since I really have no idea what I am doing 🙂

Here is our new edition, Scrappy!  He is a five month old miniature schnauzer and very playful. He loves to spend time hanging out while I sew 🙂 and he forces me to take breaks for a quick walk here and there!

I had not thought of it, but one of my sister’s asked if I named him Scrappy because I like to make scrap quilts. I laughed, but thought how ironic is that?  He really did get his name because of his personality and the way he was a scrappy little fighter with the other pups. 🙂 he is a funny little character!

Here is my first star stitched together. It probably doesn’t seem like a lot of progress, but it actually is!  I also cut the background fabric for my Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt so now I can start stitching those together.