Tag Archives: hexagon quilts

Butterfly Stars

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Not a lot of progress on Butterfly Stars this week, it seems. I’m now almost out of embroidered butterfly hexagons and need to make more stars so will spend a bit of time this weekend on that. This is where it stands right now.

As you can see, Smudge was determined to get in on this picture!


Wednesday night it was bitterly cold here with a wind chill close to -30C. Even though we had the heat turned right up, it was quite chilly in the apartment. I woke up in the middle of the night and piled quilts on top of the duvet again. That makes it very cozy and warm.

This weekend I hope to make the stars for Butterfly Stars and get at least another 12 or 16 butterfly hexagons ready. Whirling Arches blocks are calling to me too — I’d love to get another one of those blocks made and, of course, work on Red Delicious apple cores.

And yet another picture of Lester in his kitty bed.



Hexagons and More Hexagons

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Aside from the adventure making 9-patch blocks with the sewing machine on the weekend, I decided to work on the long rows of one-inch hexagons from the various swaps of that shape that have taken place through the Inklingo group. I have three and a half rows of hexagons left to make and then it will just be a matter of joining the rows together. Right now I’m thinking that it would be nice to find a stripe of all colours for the setting pieces around the perimeter once it’s together. I’ll be using half and quarter hexagons to get a straight edge.


I must have needed a hexagon fix, because I also played with these little beauties. These are half-inch hexagons that are from that Inklingo swap. I was going to make the Insanity quilt but have decided against it. I’m not sure where I’m going with these, but I have a vague idea in mind. Once I get more of these 4-hexagon units made and can start playing with layouts I’m hoping the idea becomes more clear. It will be very scrappy as there are all sorts of colours of hexagons from that swap — from browns and tans to shabby chic and everything in between.

Perhaps I will use some half-inch diamonds as connectors and have all these little 4-hexagon units floating on a sea of … well, who knows what colour!

Yet another picture of the boys together. I love the look of Smudge’s eyes in this picture.

Christmas Trees

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Remember these 3 little stacks of fabric pieces …

… that eventually turned into this little stack and a bit?


They turned into 3 of these little Christmas Tree wall hangings. I used a different white or cream background for each one and alternated the green and red peeper and border on one. I loved putting these together. This is the perfect Christmas tree for a household like ours, where there are big kitties with big paws who would destroy a tree in short order.


One of the three trees was for us and I’m going to decorate it with some tiny ornaments. I think each year I’ll add an ornament or decoration.

It was fun making the trees. Even more fun was making the pattern for them! That was my first attempt at writing a pattern. I learned a lot doing that and plan to write a few more patterns this year.

Smudge found the whole thing quite exhausting. Chasing Christmas wrapping paper is very demanding.

Lester looks like he was about to — hmm, yawn?


Strips and Strips of Hexagons

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There are about 16 of the strips of hexagons done now and there are 19 rows to go. These are almost all from swaps along with a few extras I had printed at one time or another. I’ll need to really take my time when I lay them out to figure out the order of rows so that I don’t have the same fabric/colour right beside itself, but I love how scrappy this will look!

Smudge sleeping the other night. He’s just so angelic — when he’s asleep!


Lester, also crashed. You’d think they had turkey dinner or something.


On that note, Happy Thanksgiving! It has been an absolutely glorious weekend here with fabulous warm weather and lots of sun. If only it could stay like this all year round!

Hexagons, Hexagons … and Cats

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I just couldn’t resist starting to put those long strips of hexagons together! This will be an incredibly scrappy quilt — and a lot of fun to look at, I think. So far 6 of the rows are done. For me this is the perfect way to use the hexagons from our latest swap. I think I may surround the main body of the top with one colour, just to calm it down a bit but will make that decision when I have the rows all done.


As I was laying them out, Smudge decided he needed to help. This picture may look angelic — but when he was biting the hexagons I was less than impressed!

Just about all the leaves on the trees on the roof garden are still green. A few have turned, but not many. Lester has been very busy watching the antics of all the critters and birds out on the roof garden.


Cooler Weather Stitching

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The cooler weather seems to be here for sure. We even had to turn the heat on today! 😦 Turning the heat on is always the beginning of the winter lament for me — that dark tunnel we go into until just after Christmas when, thankfully, each day gets a tiny bit longer.

Nothing much quilty, other than I started putting together the hexagons from the last Inklingo swap. I debated making traditional GFG’s with them but decided to do a quilt like this:

The picture is from this book. So far I have 4 strips of 30 or 31 hexagons done. They go together amazingly fast. I go through this book over and over and want to make almost everything in it so I suppose this is a start. The goal is to get a really quick lap quilt done with these. I think I can get the strips done within 10 days and then another 10 or 15 days to put them all together. However, I’m sure I’ll be missing the little hexagons and will be back to working on Insanity later this week.

Lester, looking so contemplative — until he did something goofy. 🙂

More Insanity

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Not a lot of stitching has got done this week, but a LOT of printing has been! I can’t even begin to imagine making this quilt without Inklingo — no basting, no whip stitching, just lovely quick running stitching. Makes it all so quick and so incredibly accurate!

All these charms have been printed with the .50″ hexagons and cut, ready to turn into a hexagon diamond.


These are the charms I have left to print, which will be done this weekend. Then all I need to print are a bunch of white hexagons and another shape as I’m thinking of amending the pattern a bit. And then it’s just all lovely hand piecing till they’re done! 🙂

One part of the pattern I definitely won’t change is the fact it needs some little GFG flowers so I started making a couple of those this week too. I’m using YLI Heirloom thread and I absolutely love how it just sinks into the seams. Perfect thread for these little pieces.



While I may be working with colours that look like spring, Smudge is definitely into fall mode curled up in one of the cat beds.


Hexagons Again

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This week has completely got away from me! I spent the weekend printing sheet after sheet of fabric with hexagons, cutting them apart and then sorting them into groups of 7 for the upcoming Inklingo swap. Finally, on Tuesday night, I had all my hexagons sorted out and packaged up ready for the swap.

Look at this book I received this week! It’s called, I believe, Making a Hexagon Quilt. While the instructions are in Japanese, the pictures and diagrams are SO incredibly detailed that I believe one could figure out the patterns without being able to read Japanese. It is a gorgeous book with some stunning quilts made with hexagons. I can tell there’s more than a few hexagon quilts in my future!

I love the look on Smudge’s face in this shot. He loves to sit in our office chairs.


Lester, on the other hand, much prefers the softer upholstered furniture.

Indecision

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I keep looking at these and wondering where I want to go with them.

I love how this has turned out so far, but can’t decide on whether to add a bit more and turn it into another doll’s quilt or keep making more of these and turn it into a lap quilt.

Then there’s this:

It’s amazingly easy to stitch. I’m so tempted to keep going around and adding more to it and then perhaps have it as a lap quilt.

Both have been sitting for ages and are, in fact, being used as pieces for an Inklingo demo by another quilter this weekend. I think when they come back I’ll make a concerted effort to finish them off somehow or another.

In the meantime, I have been working on a Christmas gift for a friend made of diamonds and hexagons and other shapes and it’s turning out quite nicely. No pictures though, as I know she reads this.

Strippy shabby is quilted! I heard from the machine quilter this weekend and it’s finished! So it should be home sometime in the next couple of weeks. I guess I had better start getting the miles of binding ready . Perfect timing too — the evenings are getting cooler, so it will be quite nice to be sitting with that quilt draped over me as I put the binding on.

We are having gloriously warm fall weather — days in the low to mid 20s (Celsius) and nights in the low to mid teens. It’s absolutely perfect. I wish the entire year could be like this and we could pass on winter altogether. Next weekend (our Thanksgiving weekend) I think we will drive up a bit north of here to see the leaves as they are generally quite glorious.

Finished Project!

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Finally, I finished the ’30s table runner. Every piece in it is an Inklingo shape which made it so easy to do. Actually, I finished it a few weeks ago but didn’t get pictures till last week. I’m quite pleased with it, even with my machine quilting on it which is quite something for me — I am not thrilled with my ability to machine quilt at all, so feeling good about this was great!

We have been enjoying the late summer days lately — love the heat and those wonderful blue skies, but am really shocked at the number of leaves changing colour already. Makes me wonder if we’re in for an early winter.

The kitties have been very busy lately playing with their caterpillar toy. We get such a huge kick out of their antics with this toy that I sometimes wonder who has more fun, them or us!