Oh my gosh, I am so close to having these stabilized! And to be clear, that means that I’ll have at least one line of hand quilting through each hexagon so that I can bind it, not that I’ll be done with the quilting. We’re leaving for Texas in just a few weeks and I want so badly to be able to bring this with me to show my grandmother!
I took this pic on December 31st and then I went in and colored it yellow where I still had to stabilize it. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think there was any chance I was going to succeed, but check it out!
This one is from this weekend and I’m so close I can taste it! I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…
I’m far from finished with the hand quilting, but I’ve decided to try out my idea for binding it anyway. And I love how it’s turning out! (Don’t worry, I’m only binding bits that have at least one line of quilting through them.)
I decided to keep the irregular hexagon edge instead of trimming it and I’m so glad I did. I’m a little bit missing the feeling of a stripy binding acting as an outline, but overall I think this is going to be awesome. I’m super glad that I splurged on my favorite teal and white background and I’m only wishing a little bit that I had hand stitched the 2 pieces of backing fabric fabric as that one seam is the only one done by machine in the entire quilt! The hexagons on the back will mostly be tone on tone white, but every once in a while I’m throwing in a rainbow of Alison Glass. I’m willing to spend so much time on the back because this quilt is going on my bed, and I figure when we get tired of the super busy front, we can have the teal side up for a while. 🙂
We’re all eagerly awaiting moving in to our new house! Target close date is the 30th, but we’re crossing all fingers and toes that we’ll close early.
It’s December and that always makes me want to reevaluate my projects from the last year and set some goals for the upcoming year. 🙂 So I thought I’d do a little check-in with my in progress quilts.
Hexagons. Y’all. I’m actually quilting this! The progress is slooooooooow, but at least I’m making progress. I’m really wanting to finish this so I’ve been quilting on it almost every evening.
2. Bee Yourself. I made a good amount of progress on this one this year! I’d really love to finish the top in 2023, but who knows. I actually have a few more blocks done, but this is the most up to date picture I could find. lol.
3. Windchime. I love this quilt so much. I currently have 12 blocks done. I’m trying to decide if I should go for 16 total blocks or 25…
4. Low Volume Log Cabin. I pulled out all of the quilting. Now I just need to give it a good pressing and then rebaste it. So probably it will still be folded up on the shelf next year when I do this check in. lol. Although, I just dug out this picture and I had forgotten how much I like it. Maybe I’ll finish it after all. lol.
5. Ice Cream Soda. I put this one back up on the design wall this week in the hopes that looking at it will motivate me to work on it. lol.
6. Smitten. Top is done! I’m planning to hand quilt this one, so it’s going to have to wait until I’m done hand quilting the hexagons.
7. Hearts. This is another one where the top is done and it just needs quilting. I *think* my plan is to machine quilt it (just stitch in the ditch) and then to hand quilt around the hearts.
8. Color Wheel. This one has been fun! I’ve now gotten all of the applique done. Just need to trim the blocks and assemble. Oh, and decide if it needs another border or not. lol. And I actually can’t find a picture of it. Shocker, right? lol. Honestly, I’m impressed that I found pictures for the other 7.
I’m making progress! I just finished the 3rd of 4 parts to my king size hexagon quilt.
And my beautiful first born held it up for a pic!
In case you missed the earlier post, here’s the full first half which I currently have up as my design wall.
Then I sorted all of the remaining hexies into 12 piles so I can hopefully finish this bad boy up! When I first started this project, it seemed like I would never finish, but now I think there’s hope!
I am a woman on a mission. I am determined to finish the center of the hexies this year. At that point, I’m going to have to make some decisions about borders, applique, etc., but I can’t let that keep me from making progress. And on that front, I finally finished the 3rd round of blocks! Now I am a busy bee stitching those 12 blocks together at which point I will sort the remaining hexagons into the 4th (and final!) round of blocks.
Here’s my pretty pile right before I started sewing them together! Once I get that done, I plan to switch my attention to Xander’s caterpillar quilt. I really want to get it to the same stage as Mia’s butterfly quilt. I got 2 fruit blocks done for it this month, and I only have 3 to go. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. And yes, I know that plums aren’t teal, but there no teal fruit we do what we’ve got to do. lol.
And! I just committed to (and purchased!) some navy fabric for an inner border between the center of the quilt and the pinwheels.
It’s going to require some math (not my favorite thing!) but I think it’s going to look awesome.
Then! I think I’m going to reward myself and spend some quality time with my ice cream soda blocks. 🙂
Well, I did half of a thing. lol. Still! I’m super impressed with myself! This represents 1/2 of the final king size quilt, or 1962 7/8 inch hexagons. All thread basted and hand sewn. Plus, I have almost all of the hexies basted! All of them are cut out, but I ran out of papers so I have about 150 more to baste.
I’m setting this aside for a while to work on some other projects, but I am so glad that I did a big push on it this month! Now I’m going to reward myself and have some quality time with my windchime quilt. Then who knows? 🙂
Remember my secret sewing back during NaNoCraftMo? I finished it!
Well, I mostly finished it. lol. I wanted to make it as a surprise for my grandmother and I nearly succeeded. I got all of the hexagons EPP’d and appliqued onto the background. I even managed to baste it and hand quilt it! But then I was stuck when it came to the binding. In my defense, I just haven’t learned how to do it properly! So I wrapped up the (nearly finished) quilt along with the fabric for the binding and gave it to my grandmother like that. You guys, she was so excited! I meant for us to bind it together, but she was so excited that the next time I saw her she’d already finished. lol. It finished at about 15 inches square and I’m really pleased at how it turned out. 🙂
It seems crazy that I’ve only been quilting for a year because my Work in Progress pile is multiplying at a prodigious rate! What can I say, I love to start new projects. 🙂
This morning, I’m working on cutting out squares for a unicorn quilt I’m making for Kate. It’s a kit and I’m learning so much while I work on it! I think that hand work will always be my favorite, but there’s no denying that this is much faster. lol.
And check out my hexies! Here they all are laid out on my grandmother’s bed. I think I’ve just about decided to make a wall hanging instead of a king size quilt. My original plan was to make 64 of these blocks. Each one is 75 hexagons and I have 15 of them done.
I currently have enough hexies basted to make a total of 36 blocks and I think I’m going to call that big enough. I have other projects I want to work on! lol. Also, the more time I spend on this, the more I cringe at the thought of the damage it would sustain if I actually put it on my bed. Once I have the 36 blocks made, I’m going to play around with the layout. I might do 7×5 and put it above my bed, but I might do 6×6 and hang it on the wall in my living room. Either way, I want to wrap it up because I want to start on a Windchime quilt!
I have about 10 other projects in the works as well. lol. What about you? Do you finish 1 project before starting the next or are you a “serial starter”?
