Grandmother's Flower Garden

I finished five more Flowers this week. I've been working on them a little each evening. They make a nice end-of-a-hot-day project to relax with before bedtime. 

Now I have one and a half to assemble and I will have 30 Flowers. At the beginning of the month I gave the backstory on these Flowers- I was given a nice bouquet of 15 flowers and the seeds for 15 more. 

Now I know myself well enough to know that I will get very bored if  I connect these Flowers together with hundreds of white hexies as in a traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden. And very soon this garden would wither and die. I don't want that to happen. So...

...I found a few chunks of low volume florals in my stash I think I can use. I've cut some of them into 13.5 inch squares and will applique the flowers to the background squares. Well, actually...I think I will blanket stitch the flowers to the backgrounds with various colors of variegated embroidery thread. Then I won't get bored and Grandmother's Flower Garden will continue to grow. 

Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts

 

Grandmother's Flower Garden Is Growing

Back in February Nann (With Strings Attached) sent me some Grandmother's Flower Garden blocks with a card and handwritten note:

Cathy, 

You are the one quilt maker I know that is likely to make something out of them. The hexies/flowers were among the projects that Fran D gave to Barb-the-quilter who gave them to me. And now they are yours. Have fun!

Nann

 How nice to have someone thinking of me once in awhile! Not one to disappoint I thought I should at some point work on them.  "Some point" is now. 

There were fifteen flowers already made...  

...and there was a mumble jumble of pieces and parts to sort through. I found enough pieces for fifteen more flowers, a couple of small pieces of small fabric not yet cut up, some odds and ends of different hexies, a hexie template and some hexie papers that look like they were cut from brown paper bags. 

So now I have started piecing in the evenings after dinner since it is too hot to hand quilt in a house without air conditioning.  I have now finished three flowers. 

At first I didn't realize there were pieces for so many more flowers. I was going to applique the blocks to a background fabric and make a small table runner. But now that I have analyzed everything I think there will be enough flowers for a lap quilt. So I will probably add the traditional white pieces between flowers to join them together. Or will I? First I need to finish the flowers and as Nann requested...have fun!

Grandmother's Flower Garden is growing!

Finished or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More

 

All Creatures Great and Small

 All Creatures Great and Small

Most of the hexies have now been sewn together randomly by hand with ladder stitch.  I had a few left over that I guess I could place here and there on some edges. We'll see. 

I measured it the other day but now that I'm posting I don't really remember the measurements; however, I think it was close to 48 x 60. 

 This has been a nice summer project but now I'm so ready to be done with it. The basting stitches and papers need to be removed next.  I'm actually reusing papers from a hexie quilt I made long ago and they still aren't all that worn out. I used old yellowed printer paper that was for an old tractor feed printer. 

 I was trying to decide what to do with the edges. On the last hexie quilt I made partial hexie parts to fill in the edges. 

But for this one I''m thinking I'll applique the hexie edges to border strips. I just don't know what I'll use for those border strips. It might have to be a solid or tone on tone (TOT) because all of the wilder pieces of fabric I've tried so far for a border have given me a slight headache. And who needs that? 

For now it's on the back burner simmering while I work on some other nice summer hand work projects. 

All Creatures Great and Small Getting Together

I've been slowly sewing my All Creatures Great and Small hexies together using ladder stitch. It's a nice project for hot summer days. 

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

All Creatures Great and Small

All Creatures Great and Small Hexagons

With this latest batch I now have about 120 hexies. When I started making them I had no idea how many I wanted. I'm now tired of making them and have used most of my critter fabrics so maybe it's time to start sewing them together.  

For English Paper Piecing (EPP) I've reused old papers removed from a hexie quilt I made in the past and I've drawn new hexies and hexie parts on  graph paper generated at Incompetech.  

All Creatures Great and Small

All Creatures Great and Small Hexies

November finishes

 I work on hexies off and on when a small project is called for which has been the last couple of weeks.  I haven't felt like getting a quilt basted so I can get it in the hoop for hand quilting. Maybe today is the day. 

And that makes 62.  I guess I'll make them until I run out of creatures great and small. 

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

All Creatures Great and Small

All Creatures Great and Small hexies. 

And now there are 48. 

I still have quite a few fabrics with critters on them. I guess I should figure out how many hexies it takes to make a lap quilt. 

All Creatures Great and Small 25-36

All Creatures Great and Small

I've finished another dozen and now have 36 little hexies.  Not sure what my goal happens to be so I'll just keep making them when I have a few minutes here and there. 

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.