Gems on the Web

How awesome is this fabric? It’s home dec weight canvas from Ikea. This is a one yard cut – the fox is huge! And so perfect :)

New to quilting? Check out this fun little pdf download over at Sew,Mama,Sew! It’s a Quiltalogue, a printable mini-book of quilting terms. How handy!

Need some more inspiration to get sewing? If you didn’t get your fill browsing the Quilts of the Day on Sew, Mama, Sew!, check out my new favorite group on Flickr: { Handsome } Hexies.

Or how about Elizabeth’s new potholders?

Seriously. So much inspiration everywhere!

Hand-Sewn Hexagon Tutorial

Here’s my little tutorial for hand-sewing hexagons together without using paper templates inside the hexagon.

First, download the hexagon template you want to use. Cut out your shape – you really only need one or two. (I made the template sheets for people who need lots for English paper-piecing). You can pre-cut your fabric into squares a little larger than your template (at least a 1/2″ on all sides), or just keep your fabric whole. Trace your shape. A lot!

Cut out your hexagons, leaving a good 1/4″ seam allowance all the way around.

Place two trimmed hexagons right sides together and stick pins through two corners. Don’t worry about your outer edges lining up, just get your pencil lines to match. Two pins – one at each end of one side of the hexes – is the easiest way to get a good match.

Stick your pins in along the lines away from where you’re going to sew so they’re out of your way. Thread your needle, and put a knot in one end. Use the knot to anchor one more corner together – this will be your starting point. I like to start and stop with a tiny back stitch at each corner when sewing these hexes together, just to make the intersections stronger.

Pushing your needle up and down in a running stitch, sew right along your pencil lines.

As you get to the end of your side, remove the pin to get it out of your way. Sew your running stitch all the way to the next corner. Once there, sew a small back stitch to secure the corner. Be careful not to pull your thread tight – it will gather your hexes. You’ll have to continually loosen the fabric back to a nice flat seam.

Now you’re ready for a third hexagon. You can add it anywhere, but for this tutorial, I just kept moving to the right. Open your first two hexes and line your third hex up right sides together with your second hex. Use a pin in the corner to keep them lined up.

After a quick back stitch through the second and third hex, to both join them and secure the intersection, continue your running stitch to the next corner.

Now you’re at the far right side, and you need to get back to sew hexes one and three together. You can do a back stitch and tie a small knot and cut your thread, or you can do a back stitch and sew a few stitches to run the thread back to the center. I do the latter…it may be laziness, but I try to see how far I can get without ever cutting the thread.

Use the same method of lining up hex one and three, right sides together, and securing the outside corners with a pin. Sew with a running stitch toward your pin.

I’ve stopped at three here, but you can just keep adding more and more around, choosing where to place the next one based on where your thread left off. Here’s the back – I’ve finger pressed the seams.

Here’s the front. Once I’ve got all the hexagons I want, I use spray starch to flatten out the seams. Eventually, I’ll also use spray starch to turn the outside edges under, and I applique my hexes down to a foundation. I guess you could just keep going and going until you make a whole quilt, but that is a little ambitious for me.

So that’s it! I hope it helps someone. Sewing these goes super fast – it took ten times as long to write this tutorial as it did to sew those hexes together. I hope you’ll link back to me with pictures of your completed projects!

revisiting hexagons

After seeing this super cute picture on flickr and reading her comment about her whip stitches showing, it reminded me that I wanted to revisit the topic of english paper piecing verses simply sewing your hexagons together.

I’ve had hexagon templates available for download on here for a while now. I recently added a couple more sizes. I also added some triangles, but then realized that someone had requested diamonds, not triangles, so I’ll be redoing those :) But the triangles might be fun too – who knows?

ANYWHOO…here’s what I wanted to talk about. After I went through all the trouble (actually, not much trouble at all) of making those templates, printing them, cutting them all out, sewing a bunch into fabric squares using Sunshine Creation’s awesome tutorial, I found that although it was very neat (as in precise, not neat-o), it was too double-the-work for my taste. And when I went to sew together my perfectly neat little hexes with their papers inside, I could not hide the joining stitches, no matter how small my stitch, no matter what thread.

Finally, I ended up just tracing the hexes onto the wrong side of my fabric. I pin them together and and sew along my pencil lines using a running stitch. Super fast and easy. I think I’ll do a tutorial of my own. Maybe tomorrow…with pictures!

The back is a lot messier, but if you use a little Best Press or something, they’ll press right down.

Hexagons are so fun and come out so cute, but the papers inside is so much EXTRA work (to me.) Once it’s all said and done, I don’t think you can tell the difference. The picture at the top has one english paper-pieced flower – you can tell because it’s edges are turned under (bottom right corner). Here it is below and I think you can really see the stitches, which is annoying. The last picture shows the differences in the backs before pressing. But again, I used a little Best Press, and had no trouble getting those seams to lay flat.

I feel so cool!

mine

kerry's

I was wandering through all the lovely quilts on Flickr, one of  my favorite pastimes, and I ran across a gallery with one of my quilts and another quilt that looks a lot like mine. Kerry over at Freckled Beauties made her lovely strip quilt based on MY DESIGN! Woo hoo!

Here are her blog posts about it with lots of pictures. I particularly like her use of bigger white pieces in the middle – they show up a lot better than on mine.

I was thinking how cool it is that we can share patterns from different countries (she’s in Canada), and how sewing – like anything that brings people together – makes the world so small. It was a thrill to see my design being created by another quilt maker. Maybe I should write down the pattern :)

Finales

Anyone else sad to see the TV seasons ending? I’m going to have to start getting creative if I hope to find TV to fill the empty hours left by the lack of prime time. I especially enjoyed Fringe and Dollhouse this season…I hope hope hope they come back! I also loved watching the craziness of Coach on Survivor. What a kook. Very entertaining. I think we’ve still got some finales to go, right? Private Practice? Brothers and Sisters? We’ll see what they come up with. I’m happy that the cable networks offset their seasons…In Plain Sight is back, and I love it. Looking forward to The Closer next month. And of course, SYTYCD starts soon!!! Woo hoo!!!

I’ve been getting more comments from people who have downloaded my hex templates. (Thanks, Ida and Susan!) I hope they’re helpful! I love to hear that people found just what they were searching for at my little home on the web :) I need to add something new to the free download page, don’t I? Maybe an embroidery pattern…I’ll work on it.

I got a little sewing done last weekend. I finished up my contribution of pinwheels that will make the border around our little dresses quilt. I forgot to take a picture of my second little dress, my friend Pauline posted this photo on facebook, and I “borrowed” it. Thanks, Pauline! My blocks are the plaid dress (2nd row, 3rd dress) and the lavender dress (3rd row, 4th dress).

And here are my pinwheels…everyone is making six using scraps from our dresses.

I won’t lie…I did not find making pinwheels very fun. My centers are really bumpy…Lynn, our fab group member and long-armer will probably be cursing me when she goes to quilt these.

I also finished up my first draft of the flier for our quilt show. I drew the little applique flowers in Illustrator…my first attempt at creating new images, rather than using stock images. I am happy with the outcome. BUT, I haven’t gotten any feedback yet, so it might not fly. Last year’s flier was a lot more elaborate, but I never liked it. I thought it was way to busy. We’ll see if this one makes the grade…

In other news, William got a light saber…that was fun for five minutes. And we redid the train table yesterday…almost two hours of assembling and reassembling what must be yards of track pieces and buildings. But he’s playing quietly in there now, so it was well worth all the trouble. Have a great week, everyone!

toddler sports and sewing

We’ve been a whirlwind of activity around here. From 3-year old sports classes every day, to a possible impending move, there’s hardly been time to sew! That’s not to say I haven’t been preparing to sew. Which means buying stuff – fabric and books! Here are my newest books…all of which I’m dying to dig into. There are at least 3 projects in all of them that I love.

The third book is a new Aranzi Aronzo book called Cute Stuff for Babies. There are the cutest little appliques in there. My favorite pattern is a bottle holder pouch in the shape of a little quilted bottle. Oh, and the little diaper covers with a bear and bunny face on the baby’s booty. Awesome.

I did finish a couple bow tucks bags. Well, I finished one and one is almost done.

And did I post this already? I’ve just been working on hand sewing all the bit down since I really haven’t had time to sew.

We’ve also been spending time at this lovely place:

More great tutorials!

Seriously, there just isn’t enough time in the day to sew all the things I want to sew. I’ve been admiring these box bags (which my husband calls dopp kits) by splityarn for some time, but couldn’t wrap my mind around the ends. Then I found this AWESOME tutorial by drago[knit]fly. THANK YOU!

In other news, my adorable kid has made up his own language. In the car today, he’d say “what’s red?” and I’d say “roja”…we were working on Spanish. Then he says, “what’s mooshkin?” and then he cracks up. He’s got a whole list of such words. Here are a few: mooshkin, monkshin, bosh, spoosh, bonkshin, maupshin, maups, faumps…I’m guessing on the spelling here. I really think only bosh and spoosh have meanings – which is basically when he does a power ranger move on something. All the rest are purely for silliness sake. I happen to love those words. They make my monkshin faumps!

holiday spirit

I’m working hard on Christmas gifts. I’m trying to avoid the last minute purchasing spree because all the crafts I had planned never got made. So, so far, I’ve completed two quilt tops, one back and binding – ready to be sandwiched, one waiting to be ironed.

I’ve also finished cloth napkins for everyone. These are about 8″ x 10″ – one fat quarter makes two. I’ve got enough here for six different families :) This is one part of my “green” Christmas, where everyone gets a reusable grocery bag and cloth napkins. And maybe something else – but I haven’t decided what yet. Any ideas? Here are my napkins:

Thanks to Unspeakable Visions for providing this fun naughty and nice list for planning gifts. I love it! Also, thanks to the Handmade Holiday 2008 group on flickr for keeping me honest and inspired. I do still plan to give a few Oxfam gifts this year though – if you haven’t been on Oxfam America Unwrapped, you should check it out. Lots of great gift ideas – especially for people who have everything!

Just a note about those cloth napkins. I instituted them at my own house about six months ago, and I thought they might be a pain, but actually, they’re awesome. First of all, I love to use them – they get softer and softer with each wash because they’re made of good quilting cotton. Second, they make me feel fancy, even when I’m eating ramen. Third, we have been using the same roll of paper towels for about 4 months now – and it’s still over half full! When they’re dirty, I set them on the washing machine, and they just get thrown in with whatever load I’m doing. If they get too stained with spaghetti sauce or whatever, I’ll just make some new ones, but so far, they are perfect. I highly recommend them for everyone! Reduce – Reuse – Recycle!

Owl’s Party!

So there I was, all proud of my own mini quilt, and then I get this in the mail. How lucky am I? I get the super cute chickens in August, and then get this precious Owl having a party for September. I love my mini quilt swap group on Flickr!

She also sent me some fun owly halloween socks!

A special thank you to JMBMommy…the fabulous creator of my quilty. I LOVE it!

my mini quilt swap group

I’m in a swap group on flickr for mini quilts. August was the first month I participated, and I made a pretty traditional pattern. By flickr standards, it was a dud. Only one or two comments. This month, with the theme of mushrooms and/or owls, I endeavored to have a much more successful flickr showing. So I decided to try my hand at an art quilt. I drew a little sketch, enlarged it on my scanner, and then cut out templates for raw edge applique. I have a ton of awesome fabrics that I don’t have a plan for, and I decided to cut into my gorgeous collection of Heather Bailey’s Bijoux and Pop Garden…it was actually kind of hard to cut into those pieces. Especially for little things like the snail’s head or the mushroom’s underbelly…it felt very wasteful. But I’m glad I did it! So here’s the result:

Here’s my sketch and and the back of my quilty – which are both pretty boring:

Next post – the awesome quilty I received!