Showing posts with label #100hexies100days2018. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #100hexies100days2018. Show all posts

Saturday, April 20, 2019

FMQ practice and planning

Practicing FMQ

I was in the mood to do some free motion quilting but nothing serious, so I doodled for a while and then took out a practice sandwich. Last week I received a book from a fellow quilter who is cleaning her bookshelf. Isn't that the greatest thing?

In a FMQ book, there were a couple of designs that I hadn't seen before, so I practiced these, put them in my FMQ journal and now I'm ready to pass the book along. Here is the result of that practice sandwich.

Practicing the main design, essentially a series of curves

Also practicing those cursive "l" and "e" shapes

Auditioning fabric for my next art quilt

I have a final quilt to make for this summer's fibre art exhibition at the Mississippi Mills Textile Museum. I have till May 20th, so it's really time to get to it!

For this piece, I am using the same image that I used a couple of years ago for my Art With Fabric piece, Gaïa, Mother Earth. The image is of a reproduction statuette of a beautiful Pre-Columbian female figure from Colombia, South America. 

Reproduction statuette from the Tamaco culture

This is the image that I originally created with the help of photo transfer medium.

Image made with photo transfer medium
This time, the Goddess will be located in a lush garden. I found some amazing fabric that is all soft colours. I'm going to fussy cut it as well as tons of other fabrics to create a colourful Earth for Gaïa.

Auditioning fabrics for my Goddess piece
I would like it to have the same feeling as my Morning Has Broken piece.

Morning Has Broken
What I learned
  • For the free motion quilting, I really need to keep practicing those cursive "l" and "e" shapes. I really like the look of them as they go from small to large and then back again.
  • For my piece, I don't want to reproduce Morning Has Broken, but I really love the look and feeling of it. I hope that I'll be able to translate that into something new.
  • Looking at the picture of Gaïa with the auditioned fabrics, I realise that I will have to make sure that she is not lost among all that colour.
  • I will be on holidays next week - so my goal is to fussy cut the fabrics and finish the design.
Related links
Linking parties
I will be linking up to Free Motion Mavericks as well several other parties. Off The Wall Friday, Finished or Not Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?,

Have a great long weekend and Happy Easter!
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Monday, December 24, 2018

Christmas Cheer

T'was the night before Christmas and mom is still cleaning, shopping, wrapping and blogging!

I helped decorate my colleague's and my office before leaving for Venice. At least that was done when I came back to Canada! I had one week to get ready for the holidays, and I spent most of it in bed or helping my daughter who was even sicker than I. Oh well, I'm sort of rested and at least we weren't sick during our trip 😊.

Office decorations & hexies

If I'm writing a post, it's probably because there are textiles or fibre involved :-)

My office decorations
My colleague's
decorated office

I created these two hangings years ago. They are both made of wool roving on hand-woven backgrounds.

Snowman hanging

I used to use the hangings to display the Christmas cards....do you remember those days when we sent and received lots of Christmas cards? That was essentially before the internet and social media. Things have changed.

I've kept the prettiest or most sentimental of the Christmas cards. They are great for decorating or making other things.

The office plant is decorated with a double-woven decoration.
Decorating the office plant
This is the second Christmas hanging with brand new Christmas hexies - made last night!
Christmas hexies
This year I've only taken out a couple of bags of Christmas fabric scraps. I don't have that much Christmas fabric but I knew that I wouldn't be making anything significant this year, so the scraps were fine.

I found enough red fabric to make one hexie and then fussy cut other fabrics for two more hexies. I'll be adding these to the piece I'm making with the #100hexies100days2018.
Light Christmas themed hexies

Dark Christmas themed hexies
Christmas Runner

A couple of years ago I made this Christmas runner for a friend but, of course, forgot to take pictures. Her kids like snowmen, so I added a couple of snowman blocks at each end, with star block in between. I'll look into my Christmas quilting magazine stash to see where it comes from and add it later.

Snowman Christmas runner

Snowman Christmas runner












The back of the Snowman Christmas runner












Season Wishes

I wish you a wonderful holiday season. It's not always an easy time of the year but I hope that you get some time to enjoy your family &/or friends, great food, and some quilting and resting time.

What I learned
  • I don't think that I could have expected to be sick when I got back but this year my family decided to keep everything really simple for Christmas. I hope that we do that each year. BTW, I cleaned (sort of) and decorated the house yesterday with my daughter. The guys had put up the Christmas tree before we got back, so that was a wonderful surprise! I am almost ready.😊
  • I still have a few posts to write before the end of the year, including some exciting news, so look for them soon. 
Related links
Linking parties
I will be linking to a lot of link-ups, so check them out! Monday Making, What I Made Monday, To-Do Tuesday, Linky Tuesday, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers, Oh Scrap!, Silly Mama Quilts - WIPs, ScrapHappy Saturdays, Friday Foto Fun, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?,
I've also linked this post to Sandra's Throwback Thursday since these are almost all older, non-posted projects!



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Saturday, December 01, 2018

EPP or English Paper Piecing Fun

100 hexies 100 days 2018
The 100 hexies in 100 days event on Instagram (#100hexies100days2018) was such fun that I found myself wondering what to do after it was all over!

For those of you who don't follow Instagram, here are my last few weeks of posts.

Week 12 - Something Sweet
I don't have tons of novelty fabric and by week 12, I had used most of them. That means that I had to get innovative. I went for the colour of chocolate with the props to go with the hexies. It was the brown fabric with caramel coloured dots that gave me the idea for this. Doesn't it look good enough to eat?

Purdy's single origin chocolate is not so sweet but awesome :-)
The chocolate and hexies are on one of my mother's first quilted placemat.
There's nothing quite like chocolate!
Week 13 - Halloween
Again I didn't really have Halloween fabric, so pumpkins and fall colours are featured this week. Patches comes out every fall. He's one of the first foundation paper pieced project I ever made, and certainly the largest to date.
Black and orange hexies keep Patches company
Week 14 - You're a Gem
I have been collecting Alison Glass' fabrics for a little while. If these are not gem-like, I don't know what is!
Amazing Alison Glass fabrics
I used my rock and petrified wood collection to show off the gem hexies. I love rocks. I don't know much about them and I certainly don't know their names, but I'm a Northern Ontario mining town girl and it's in my blood.
All kinds of rocks and some petrified wood to go with the hexies
 Some day these fabrics (and a few others) are going to make an amazing quilt!
Even the background looks like sand!
So Far...
This is the result of my 100 hexies in 100 days event. There are probably a few more, but not many. I'm going to keep making them, but definitely at a slower pace.
Putting them all together...so far
What next?
It's probably a good thing that the 100 hexies in 100 days event is over since I still have lots of work to do on the Kingfisher Stitch-Along. It's officially over but there are still some great finished quilts being posted on Instagram (see the link in Related links below).
More batik hexies, pinned and ready to be stitched
This weekend I'm getting ready to go away to Italy to pick up my daughter. I'm meeting her in Venice and then we are spending a few days in Florence. I've decided to pack these up with some cut fabric to make more hexies. I don't sew on the plane since there just isn't enough room but I'm sure that I'll have some quiet time to stitch a little during the trip.

One Monthly Goal (OMG) for December
I called it November Madness and that's exactly what it was. I'm going to keep Charlotte's t-shirt/dress quilt as my OMG for December since I got lots done in November, but not my OMG. I did work on it, but there is still a lot of free motion quilting left to be done. At this point I have to consult my FMQ journal to see what FMQ designs to use on the borders.
t-shrt and border quilted
One t-shirt and border done - many more borders to go!

What I learned

  • Starting the month with a post that includes Madness in it's title was probably asking for trouble! It was a mad but productive month. 😊
  • I had a blast playing with hexies every week. Sometimes it was a bit of a pain, but mostly I loved it. I'm happy to say that my posts were a bit late only a couple of times.
  • It may take a long time to get a lap quilt out of my small hexies, but there's no hurry. It's very much a WIP (work in progress)!
  • I'm looking forward to getting back to my larger 1" hexies from the Kingfisher Stitch Along. I even bought a few batiks since I last worked on these, so I'll be cutting these up today to bring with me.
  • I knew that trying to get Charlotte's quilt done by the end of November was being very ambitious but that's ok. I did work on it a little and will keep at it when I get back.

Related links
I will be hosting Throwback Thursday this week for Sandra of mmm! Quilts, so please come and post something so that Sandra keeps working with me 😊

Linking parties
I'll be linking this post to the December OMG goal setting link-up as well as many others. Let's see what's happening! Free Motion Mavericks, Finished or Not Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Slow Sunday Stitching, Oh Scrap!, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Design Wall Monday, Moving It Forward, What I Made Monday, Linky Tuesday, To-Do Tuesday,


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Monday, October 22, 2018

October updates

October is almost finished and so far I've written very few posts. I did some quilting, lots of planning and listened to many audio books. I'm also totally overwhelmed by the number of comments on my September posts and I hope to answer them....one day, or not. So please know that I really appreciate getting comments, but at one point, I may give up on answering the older ones. Sorry 😔

One Monthly Goal (OMG) accomplished!

My October OMG was to finish a quilt top for a t-shirt and dress quilt for Sonya's daughter. I had very little hope that it would get done, so I am very, very pleased to say that the quilt top is finished and the quilt is about half quilted.

Here are a few of the quilted blocks so far. I'm not sharing the rest of the quilt top yet since I'd like to keep it a surprise 😊 Since I'm planning to make this quilt my November OMG, you'll be able to see it at the end of November, if not earlier.

This first block is a variation of Peas in a pod, designed by Maddie Kertay. You can see my own doodling of it in my FMQ journal. The design is found in 180 Doodle Quilting Designs, page 99. The book is compiled by Karen M. Burns.

Peas in a pod
Variation of Peas in a pod
FMQ design

























You may recognize this next FMQ design from Angela Walter's Free Motion Challenge Quilt Along that I did last spring. This is the Feather Meander and a lot of swirly variations.
Feather Meander and swirly variations

Finally, I quilted around the dolphins and then FMQ a whole bunch of bubbles.
Bubbles around the dolphins
There is a lot more to quilt, especially since I also want to FMQ inside the sashing, which I will keep simple.

Fabric acquisition for a future project

For the October's Throwback Thursday, I posted a Beatles quilt that I made using a walking foot. In the post, I said that although made for my daughter's room that the quilt had never hung there since I had taken too long to finish it and her room decor had moved on.

Well my daughter, who is now studying art history for a semester in Venice (doesn't that sound absolutely amazing?!) commented that she still wanted a Paddington Bear quilt and would love it even if her room changed. (The link to that post is in Related links below.)

Since I know that she loves Paddington Bear and that she's my number one fan, the day after she posted her comment, I went on the internet in search of fabric. I found these on Etsy and I'm sharing the links below since I had excellent service from both shops.

Lovely Paddington Bear fabric


At this time, I'm thinking of making a large Paddington Bear applique in the quilt centre and then using this and other fabric blocks around it for a scrappy look. This will probably be a winter 2019 project.

More hexies

The 100 hexies in 100 days event on Instagram is now in its eleventh week. Here are the hexies and the pictures for weeks 9 to 11. Since I haven't done as much quilting as I would like, I thought that I would try to put a little more effort in my pictures of these hexies.

Week 9 - Floral

Since the floral theme was all about colour (for me), I thought that I would use the Our House quilt to showcase the hexies I made. Here they are!

Floral hexies at Our House

A close-up of the floral hexies with "the two cats in the yard".
More floral hexies in the yard
Week 10 - Favourite Colours

It's pretty difficult to make me choose ONE favourite colour. Instead, I gathered up some of my favourite colours and made a display with my muse and my Kimono silk thread collection.

What a lot of colours - how can I choose just one?
The quilt under the hexies is a wheel chair quilt that I made for my grandmother. It's the perfect backdrop for wonderful colours.
More lovely colours and incredible silk thread!!!
Week 11 - I Spy

This week's selection is objects that are used in an I Spy quilt. It took me a while to find fabric that I mostly hadn't use on previous hexies. Thank goodness I've purchased a few fabrics recently :-)

I Spy hexies on fireman fabric

My absolute favourite is that priceless pink squirrel!

Paddington Bear makes his first appearance.
Art with Fabric, Fall 2018 Coming Soon!

The Art with Fabric blog hop, hosted by Alida, will be held between Monday, November 5 to Friday, November 9, 2018.  My post will be featured on Wednesday, November 7th.


The theme of the blog hop is our favourite colour. I am doing my art piece on the colour white - which is not my favourite, although technically white includes all colours, so technically it could be my favourite :-)

My piece is based on a BBC documentary series called A History of Art in Three Colours. While the first two films were interesting, it's the third one that caught my attention. My piece will feature white and its role in the evolution of art history, particularly in contemporary art.

What I learned
  • I tend to practice a lot of FMQ designs on scrap pieces of paper or photocopy paper. When I get one that works well on paper and ink, I'll usually try it on the sewing machine. Generally I know that if I can draw it, then I can quilt it. I then either re-copy these in my FMQ journal or just cut and paste them in the journal. If I didn't keep track of the designs I use or can do, I would never remember what FMQ designs to us! 
  • The 100 hexies in 100 days event on Instagram has influenced my fabric purchases! I now look for some fabrics that have interesting characters. This is not normally the type of fabric I buy, but they can be very handy to have when making art quilts.
  • I've been working very hard on my Art with Fabric Blog Hop piece. It's a fairly complex piece that has been both fun and challenging to make. I'll have a lot more to say on November 7th, so I hope you'll join me.

Related links
Linking parties
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Sunday, September 30, 2018

September endings

What a month! I'm really glad that I was able to blog at the beginning of the month because somehow life got in the way :-) 

100 Hexies in 100 Days 2018

I have to report on my #100 hexies in 100 days since this is one of the few things that I've done in the last couple of weeks.

Week 5 - 30's Prints

Since I don't have many 30's prints, I bought a package of Riley Blake's Vintage Adventure 5" charm squares. Aren't they perfect?
Hexie and a creeping white rose

Week 5 - 30's prints
Week 6 - Micro mini things

I found some interesting fabrics with small things on them. Since my hexies are only 3/4", almost anything that fits is micro!

Week 6 - Small stuff

Week 7 - Nautical

I've used many of these fabrics for the critters and the summer fun. I dug a little deeper in my stash to find a few different ones. You can see from my total lack of effort in making this a nautical theme photo that I was in the middle of deadlines. I think my post was also late :-(

Week 7 - nautical
Week 8 - Love

Love has many faces - symbols and words of love, love of dogs, books, quilting
and finally the love of mother and flowers (that's her dress fabric). I was really happy to find this heart quilted on my table runner - that made the photo shoot much easier! 
Love - over a FMQ feathered heart

The many faces of Love of week 8
Hexies sewn together


We have 15 weeks in the 100 hexies in 100 days, so we're more than half way there. I've been sewing these up together to make a very scrappy quilt. It's coming along, but could take a while to get enough hexies to make a quilt of any size :-)


DrEAMi!

It's DrEAMi! time at mmm! Quilts. These are Squirrel projects (Drop Everything And Make it!) that either catch our interest or special requests that come our way. I'm very grateful that I don't have too many special requests but my daughter asked me to make her a case for her laptop a few months ago. I guess I needed a deadline to make it - and since she left for Venice on Friday, it was time.😊

Jeannine chose the fabrics and I made it. The mustard yellow and grey go really well together. I'm quite pleased that it turned out since I didn't follow a pattern.
Laptop case front

Laptop case closed
I just used Velcro to close the flap.
Laptop case  - it actually fits! 
Wandering Camera

I love participating in the Wandering Camera photo link-up. There is always some amazing photos to see. This month I don`t have an art quilt made from a photo, so I just want to share a photo I took of some lovely clover. There's no real story here except that these pink beauties stood out as I walked.

I'm not sure if it will ever become an art quilt, but you never know when inspiration will hit. I also like to take pictures of pretty things just because looking at them makes me smile 😊


Red clover
T-shirts & dresses for a quilt
October's One Monthly Goal

I have some t-shirts and dresses from my friend's daughter that I promised to make into a lap quilt. The t-shirts have already been cut. Now I have to cut the dresses up to use the fabric and the frills and design it. I'll be using some pink and purple Kona solids for the sashing and possibly some backgrounds if it's required. By the end of October, I want to have the quilt top finished!

Throwback Thursday

I'll be hosting Throwback Thursday for October this week (October 4, 2018), which is usually at Sandra's of mmm! Quilts. Please come check it out and link up a post of something you made pre-blog, or that you just didn't get around to posting.

What I learned
  • I really, really need to slow down with these deadlines. I guess if my daughter hadn't been getting ready to leave for 3 months, it might have been less hectic.
  • However, I have taken the next 3 days off. I've had a great time this weekend cooking a little, doing some minor cleaning at my own pace and generally enjoying life. That's a very good thing and I plan on doing more of the same, with quilting and sewing added to the mix. 😊
  • I'm looking forward to doing some quilting - maybe even stuff that isn't planned. My daughter has taken some pictures of Venice and I absolutely need to make an art quilt. Nothing fancy but I'd love to make a few from her pictures for her to remember her trip by (even if I don't give her all of them :-)  ).
  • October is going to be a busy month, mostly because I have my Art with Fabric piece to make. I've gotten the idea, now I just need to figure out how to execute it simply (famous last words!!!)
Related links
Linking parties
I will be linking this post at DrEAMi! at mmm! Quilts, the October One Monthly Goal Setting at Elm Street Quilts, Whims and Fancies' Wandering Camera as well as many other cool linking parties. Make sure to visit some if you have the time! Oh Scrap!, Slow Sunday Stitching, Main Crush Monday, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, Moving It Forward, What I Made Monday, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Linky Tuesday, To-Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Silly Mama Quilt's WIP, Let's Bee Social,


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