Hexagon Blocks

In September, Amanda went to visit her Grandma. While there, she sent me a photo of these hexagon quilt blocks, which were made by Amanda's grandma's mother-in-law, and said she was giving them to me. I was astonished to receive such an amazing gift! They are all hand-stitched. Amanda gave them to me when I saw her earlier this month, and we looked through all of them. Of course the first thing I did when I got home was sort them all. A lot of research and deliberation will be required before I commit to a project!

There are 50 total blocks, with only a few duplicates. The 43 unique blocks are pictured below:

Pink and Blue Progress Update

This block has come a long way since I last posted about it, but it's been awhile! This will be a quilt top by the end of the day, and hopefully a finished quilt by next weekend...but considering how long it's been in progress, maybe let's say the end of the month?

ETA: And here it is...a front and back all pinned and ready to go!

Of course I didn't have enough pink thread to start quilting, but that's okay, I started another project with an October deadline, so this one can wait a little longer!

ETA: The finished project!

Purple and Yellow Progress Update

I posted about this quilt in March, after finishing the top, and then it sat draped over the office chair in the sewing room until the beginning of July. I had three blocks - two 14" blocks and one 7" block - to finish in order to complete what was going to become either a second quilt top or the back of the quilt. Here are the 14" blocks:

I already had the purple pinwheel parts, which measured 8.5", done - all I had to do was add the yellow - so you wouldn't think I would have put it off so long, but I didn't know what I wanted to do, and was rather overwhelmed by all the tiny piecing. I ended up making ten 4.5" blocks with purple centers, which made it seem more manageable.
 
Hopefully I'll have a finished product soon!

ETA: The finished project!

Pink and Blue Progress

I decided to work on my Quilt Block Project by pulling out my two favorite blocks and making them their own quilts. So the purple and yellow pinwheel block is getting its own quilt, as is the pink and blue block. This is the block I made to coordinate:

The blue stars and pink dots are some of my favorite fabrics, and I think I love the new block even more than the original! I was tempted to make another block just like this one, but I'm running out of solid blue fabric, and - due to my extensive collection of pink fabrics - I think can finish this quilt without buying any new fabric!

ETA: The finished project!

Purple and Yellow Progress

I didn't quilt much last year, and I decided that I would change that in 2013. I started by pulling out the blocks from my Quilt Block Project. However, when I laid it out, I still wasn't entirely happy with the combination of blocks. I decided to pull out my two favorites, the purple and yellow pinwheel block (shown below) and the pink and blue block and make them their own quilts. It turned out that I had enough scraps to make a second purple and yellow pinwheel block, only slightly smaller. 

I had three other purple and yellow blocks to work with:

Quilt Block #30

Quilt Block #34

Quilt Block #7

After some seam ripping and some additional fabric, they turned into this: 

This was going to be the back of the quilt, and the pinwheel blocks would go on the front. At one point, I had purchased at least a yard each of four yellow fabrics for another project, so I was determined not to buy any more fabric except some solid purple for the binding. But the back didn't fit with the design I'd put together for the quilt top. Then one day I realized that if I took apart that center hexagon block, I could make more pinwheel blocks. After more seam ripping, I realized I didn't have enough of the yellow or purple polka dot fabrics to make the same pinwheel blocks. However, I was still able to recycle the pieces into something more useful:

A few more blocks, and I'll be able to piece what will either become the new back or a second top.

ETA: The finished project!

Lightning Bolt Block Pattern

I've received a couple requests for the pattern I used to create the lightning bolt blocks in my Pink Stars quilt. Since I paper pieced the block, the pattern got destroyed in the process, but I was able to recreate it:

Download the pattern

How I designed it:
I started by drawing a rectangle roughly the size I wanted the block to be and drawing my lightning bolt within. Then I sketched it out to fill the rectangle in a way that I could divide up for sewing.

How to sew it:
The block is comprised of three sections (top, middle, bottom), and each section has 3 pieces (2 dark, one light). Cut the pattern apart on the two diagonal lines, separating the top, middle, and bottom sections. Using the paper as your base, sew each section, making sure to leave a 1/4 inch seam allowance on the top and bottom of each section. Then sew the sections together and remove the paper.

If you've never paper pieced, SewHooked has a lot of paper piecing resources. I use magazine pages as my base because they tear away so easily. For larger blocks, I use parchment paper. Alternately, you can cut all the pieces apart and use them to cut out the appropriate shapes.

Either way, you will end up with a lovely lightning bolt block:

Work in Progress

The only sewing I've been doing over the last two months is in an effort to get stuff out of my house. This project has been sitting in a box in closet for years and I decided it's time to do something with it. There was no way I was ripping out stitches to recycle the fabric as I've done with other projects, so I finished up the blocks and now I have 80 badly pieced blocks that are far from square to deal with. I'm not taking the time to square them up as that won't really help the design. I started this quilt in 2001, before I had a rotary cutter, and the design suffered for the lack of precisely cut shapes. I loved the fabric when I bought it; not so much anymore.

Tiny Crazy Nine Patch Blocks

I finally brainstormed an idea for turning my orange crazy nine patch blocks into a quilt top. I made 18 3.5" blocks which will be used for the top and on the back.

Avignon Picnic Blocks

I am making another of Moda's Avignon Picnic quilt. The last one I made I only used one jelly roll instead of two. This time I'm not using any jelly rolls. While you lose the advantage of quick strip piecing with this method, you gain the advantage of not having a lot of seams in the solid fabrics. You still use 2.5" strips.

Here's how to piece the blocks if you are using only one or no jelly rolls:

Then you lay them out in alternating rows like this:

For my lap-size layout, I made twelve blocks with white centers and six blocks with white borders (plus four half blocks).

Julie's Quilt Progress

Julie sent me fabric so I could make her a quilt like the one I made for dad. She got a bit overwhelmed by Joann's though, so while she sent enough fabric, she didn't send enough different fabrics for the pattern. Thus we began a long process of me selecting coordinating fabrics I thought she might like and sending pictures for her approval. I'm glad I did because her choices surprised me.

I pulled these three from my stash, the blue and green from quilt block #46:

I picked up these at Joann's:

And we ended up with this:

Not all fabrics are represented equally, but here's the first set of blocks:

Lightning Bolt Blocks

These blocks will go with the pink stars. Since I ran out of pink, I needed something to fill in the gaps. These will be ideal. Now I just have to put it together, then figure out what I'm going to do about the back and how to quilt it.

Finished project.

Get the pattern and make your own lightning bolt block!

Mini Pink Stars

I am exceptionally pleased that I was able to scavenge enough of this pink fabric to make these three little stars! They are 7". They will be accents for the bigger versions, which are 15". I am very excited about the layout of the quilt top now that I have them.

Finished project.

Crazy Nine Patch Blocks

I am very pleased with how these blocks turned out! It only took about an hour to do each set. I am amazed at how precise most of the intersections turned out, considering the odd angles. I think I'll sash the green set with navy. I'm not sure about the orange set yet, but I'm leaning towards bright blue. I'm also going to piece some strips to add between the rows so they won't turn out square.

Three More Stars

After not sewing for over a month, I had a spurt of productivity this weekend and finally finished the last 3 star blocks that I started in October!


They ended up being 15" square. I am going to have to investigate alternative pink fabrics before I decide how I want to finish it.

Finished project.

Pink Paper-Pieced Star

I saw a quilt on Flickr and it had a tutorial for a square star block, instead of the rectangular blocks I have used in the past. I love stars, so I just had to try it! I had been wanting to use this combination of fabrics, and this was the perfect project. Unfortunately, I only have two fat quarters of the pink fabric and 1/2 a yard of the sparkly white fabric, so I'm hoping I can get six blocks. They should end up being about 14.5" square.

Finished project.

More Strips

Today I decided to finish up the strip piecing blocks I had started a couple weeks ago. I was pleased that I was able to get eight more blocks out of the remaining strips. These, however, did not come out as square as the first set, so they all had to get chopped down a quarter inch. Since I don't have a plan in mind, it won't ruin the dimensions of the final project.


Finished project

Strip Piecing

Yesterday's project was strip piecing. Thanks to the quilt I made for Amanda, I had strips of several blue fabrics no more than 2.5 inches wide. I pieced them on parchment paper. My original intent was to make a block for my Quilt Block Project, but since I still have a few strips left, I am going to see how many blocks I can make and come up with a new project.

Finished project