1.950 hexagons later...

It started last year while I was on vacation with my dad and sis.

 Do you remember this pic ?

This is where my love for paper piecing started. Since I made my first hexagons I'm completly hooked.

In the past 12 months I was always working on my hexagon flower project when I was traveling or when I was in mood to hand sew.

Finally 5 weeks ago I added my last flower.

1.950 little hexagons were made into this lovely quilt in less than a year.

I used one tiny piece of each of my fabric in my stash (minus the ones I bought in the last months) and sashed everything in kona ash.

Now there is even more work waiting for me because I decided to hand quilt this baby.

I plan to quilt around each flower with grey embroidery thread.

I already finished the backing and I'm going to baste this quilt as soon as I'm leaving the hospital.

I already made my decission for the binding.

Gladly I was able to find yardage of the Annie's Seed Catalogue so I can use the same fabric which I already used for the center of the flowers.

After 1.950 tiny pieces I still love hexagons so I already started another project.
I will have lots of time durring chemo so hopefully the next one wont take me a year to finish.

Hexagon travel kit

10 hours on the plane...what would you do ??

Sleeping, eating, reading, watching movies or just starring at the people next to you ?!

In my case I'm the movie watching kind of girl.

I traveled with finnair for most of my long flights and I always liked their movie selection.

They had the typical blockboster but also some nonfamous (at least for me) movies from different countries.

I never had any problems to fill my flight with tons of movies.

Due to a strike from finnair last year I had to fly with lufthansa.

I was really dissapointed when I saw there movie selection. They had only a few blockbuster which I already watched at home.

Since I'm flying with lufthansa this year again I will prepared to have nothing to watch. Since I won't feel comfortable starring at the people next to me or eating tons of food (I'm tall so my body and stomach is already completly crushed already due to the small seats which means I have no place  for lots of food ) I had to look for sth. to entertain me.

Making Hexagons entertained me a lot in the past months so why not making hexagons durring the flight ?!

Normally I would travel like this with my hexagon sewing stuff but for a long flight I really needed something more tidy.

So I jumped on bandwaggon and drafted a little pattern for a hexagon sewing kit kind of bag.

( I can make a tutorial when I'm back if anyone is interesseted)

I wanted to use some scraps so I tryed the bow tie pattern.

I started to quilt the white pieces by hand but found out that the pattern will loose all the prettiness once you fold it.

So I stoped on the project and put it aside for a fresh start.

This time I kept it really simple.

Just some 1 inch colorfull squares framed in black Kona and with a letter printed fabric background.

I hand quilted around the square with embroidery thread and I hand quilted some circles all over the the whole piece.

The lining really caused my headaches.

I had to decide how many pockets or other stuff need to be added.

I decided for 4 pocket to hold the precut fabrics and one pocket for the templates.

Sadly I made a little mistake with the measurements so one of the pocket on the far right is a little bit to small to hold my 2,5 inch fabric precuts.

I added a little piece of felt for the needles.

I just need one needle to sew the hexagons but the pins looked so nice so I added these as well.

BTW ...does anyone know if I'm allowed to bring needles on the plane ? Is it allowed ???

I added a little string made from some kona solid to hold my thread. You can easily change the thread color because you can open and close it with a snap fastener.

The little scissor is my fave item.

I bought in in the museum of history in Hong Kong last year.

I was looking for some scissores because I was working on a travel book durring the trip and needed something to cut all the stuff I wanted to glue in the book.

I hope this little sewing kit will keep my busy durring the flight and with some luck I will be able to finish some hexagons flowers for my second hexagon quilt.

holiday crafting

Do you remember this post ?!

The pillow cover is not the only christmas related item which I'm taking to Hong Kong.

Since my wallet is a bit big and heavy I made myself a new one just for the trip.

It's big enough to store all my credit cards and cash but not to heavy and bulky.

I used one of my fave linen fabrics from the stash. I bought the fabric a few years ago but never found the perfect project to use it.

The wallet is something I will use daily so I will be able to enjoy the cute fabric very often.

The lining are some christmas related fabrics from my stash as well. I really need to stock up with some christmas fabrics but I will wait untill christmas is over to get them on sale.

This year I won't be able to use any more christmas fabrics so I have no problem to wait.

There is always another christmas coming !

If you are interessted in making the wallet the pattern can be found here and it's really easy to make.

And here is the latest update from the hexagon project.

The quilt is growing and growing. Sadly there will be no time to work on that quilt for the next 4 weeks.

I think I will be able to add a few flowers durring christmas holidays.

I really can't wait to finish this quilt because I'm plaing the next hexagon quilt already.

I know I must be crazy to think about another hexagon project but I really love to have long term projects.

I'm full of hope that the first hexagon quilt will be finished by the end of january 2012 so I can have a fresh start with new hexagons.

Handsewing

I still have a cold and a sore throat so I'm spending most of the time on the couch.

It's hard for me stay away from the sewing machine but at least I can work on some handsewing stuff.

I really love it to work on appliqué but I rarely find the time. This week is perfect to finish some WIPs.

I have already plans what I will make out of this appliqué. But it's a secret. Stay tuned and you will find out.

My hexagon quilt is growing too. Very slowly but at least I'm getting some flowers done.

950 hexagons

I can't believe that I already used around 950 hexagons for my quilt top.

There are still more than 1000 hexagons waiting for me but I still like working on this quilt.

I really enjoy hand sewing while watching TV or series.

Recently I'm watching Glee. I have to admit that I'm adicted already and I will be really sad when I finished all episodes.

Mie is really enjoying the hexagon quilt too.

week 40: Things I love

It's wednesday so time to speak about things I love.

Every wednesday I TRY to post about things I love today (or last week).

This week I'm loving:

seeing the hexagon quilt grow

I was abvle to add a few flowers and some grey sashing last weekend. We had a long weekend (thanks public holiday) so my hubby (it's still sounds weird to me calling mr. artistic my hub) and I spent our entire weekend at inlaws home.

I don't have a sewing machine at there home so I always bring some hand sewing.

But back to quilt.

I was hoping to add one flower each day but life is busy so I'm glad that I work on this project at least once a month for a few hours.

So you can see at least 20 % are done.

Mie

She is an all time fave.

Mr. artistic will be at his parents home for the entire week.

We will see each other tomorrow again. Since I'm working every day our little Mie stayed with him.

I really miss her but at least I can still enjoy her pics.

Hexagon project

I have always many sewing projects in progress.

One of my fave projects is the hexagon quilt.

I started to cut the 2 x 2 inch squares in may 2011 when I was on a trip with dad & sis.

Since may I worked nearly every week on this project. I cut templates & fabrics, sewed templates and finally put the hexagons together.

Last week I finished 127 hexagon flowers in different colours and fabrics.

(hexagon flower tower - 127 flowers)

I used all my quilting weight fabrics (no linen or medium weight fabrics) except for the grey and the black ones.

(hexagon quilt - planing)

Last week I took another big step. I draw the pattern for the quilt.

When I draw the pattern I planed to use 130 hexagons. But after some calculating I thought it might be better to add 13 hexagon flowers to make the quilt wide enough to use it as a blanket.



(time to start putting the quilt together)



So here are the plans for quilt:

- 143 hexagon flowers made from 1001 coloured hexagons

   I finished the first 127 flowers so I already used 889 hexagons.

- sash the flowers in ash kona

  I have no idea how many grey hexagons I need to make. Must be something around 1500+

- quilt size: around 112 cm x 182 cm

   I might add another row with 13 hexagon flowers when the quilt turned out to be to small.

(ash sashing)

Last weekend I finally start putting the first flowers together. I have to admit that I used every free minute to work on this project (which wasn't a lot since we visited mr. artistics parents) but the result is already breathtaking.

(first 10 flowers sashed in kona ash)

If I add one flower to the blanket each day this project should be finished in 143 days.

But since I'm working on a few projects it might take a little longer.

I'm not sure if anyone is reading my blog but I'm looking for someone who likes to swap 18 little fabric squares (2 x 2 inch) with me.

I'm looking for 6 purple, 6 dark pink and 6 orange squares for my hexagon project.

I run out of different fabrics and I don't want to buy any fabrics just for some tiny squares.

So if anyone wants to swap some little squares with me feel free to contact me .