A Rainbow of Favorite Things - Finished !!!

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My 6 inch hexagon quilt is finished

It is completely hand pieced and quilted. No machines were involved.

Paper pieced and then hand quilted with perle #8 in a rainbow of different colors. 

It's a rainbow of my favorite things. 

I started in the middle with black - the absence of color and some crayons, then a mix of colors in some of my favorite things - buttons, ice cream, cupcakes, butterflies, candy...

Red is for valentines, strawberries, zinnias, roses, cherries, tulips, tomatoes, candy canes...

Orange is for pumpkins, peaches, oranges, carrots, daffodils...

 Yellow is for bananas, daffodils, lemonade, sweet corn, roses, sunflowers...

Green is for christmas cookies, kiwi, broccoli, peas Irish, basil, pears...

Blue is for blueberries, butterflies, merry-go-rounds, unicorns, iris, fairies, aprons, hoarfrost...

Purple is for pansies, plums, clematis, fairies, grapes, hydrangeas...

 The back is a multi-colored batik I picked up on sale.  I sometimes don't have very even stitches so I didn't want them to stand out too much on the backing.

I'm glad I'm finished with this. I've been working on it off and on for a very long time so it feels very good to be able to cross another UFO off the list.

Since I have a finish I'm linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.   And, since I really think I deserve a Whoop, Whoop I'm also linking up at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  And, I'm also off to give a Weekend Update at Block Lotto. 

Still Working on It. It's Still One of My Favorite Things.

Still quilting in perle #8 ...

...on my Rainbow of Favorite Things.  But I'm almost finished. 

Then I have to decide how to finish off the edges.  I'm still thinking about that.  Why plan ahead? 

Other Slow Stitching on Sunday links are at Kathy's Quilts. Go look. 

Boo hoo...my week of vacation is just about over. Hi ho! Hi ho! It's back to work I go tomorrow. 

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Six inch hexies are all sewn together into a quilt top and I've started hand quilting.  It's a rainbow of some of my favorite things. 

Fairies, blueberries, snowflakes, butterflies, merry-go-rounds, unicorns, pansies...

 ...Halloween, peaches, pansies, pumpkinsm daffodils...

I couldn't decide what to use for the backing. I wanted to use perle #8 in a variety of rainbow colors to do the quilting but didn't want it to look too strange on the back.  This fabric is a rainbow of flowers and the quilting blends in nicely. 

After a day in and out of the garden  - weeding and picking strawberries, playing games with and chasing around grandkids and getting ready for a camping trip next weekend I'm ready to relax, sit with a glass of homemade raspberry/rhubarb wine and do some slow Sunday stitching on my Favorite Things before bed. 

For some more Slow Sunday Stitching inspiration visit Kathy's Quilts. 

Rainbow of Favorite Things

Working on sewing together my 6 inch hexies into a Rainbow of Favorite Things. It's been a UFO for far too long. 

Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts has links to others who are doing some slow stitching on this beautiful Mother's Day. 

I Love Cherries (or Hi-Ho Cherrio!)

I didn't know if I should call the quilt "I Love Cherries" or if I should name it "Hi-Ho Cherrio" after one of the first board games I played as a little girl...

...at any rate...here it is...a lap quilt which measures about 72x79. I've been collecting cherry themed fabrics for a couple of years. I'm not sure where I first saw the Japanese X and + block. I think I saw a picture on some link from a blog from a blog from a blog...but I eventually searched and found a tutorial at a blog named badskirt. 

72 blocks make up the quilt. 

How can you be in a bad mood when you are surrounded by so much color? 

This is the backing...little kids and cherries. Sweet. I quilted it on my sewing machine with a concentric circle pattern in variegated blue thread on the back and cream colored on the front.  Those aren't knots in the picture...they are little pieces of thread that got caught in the quilting.  I had thread snippets everywhere. In the middle of quilting my thread seemed to break after every couple of circles. I cleaned the machine, I changed bobbins, I re-threaded, changed needles, re-threaded again, cussed quite a bit and then finally changed the brand of quilting thread I was using as top thread and then all went well. 

I have other collections of fabrics of my fav things. This is the first of many quilts to use up some of that fabric. I thought it would be a nice lap quilt to take to the nursing home should I ever see that day. But by then there will probably be "death panels" that will deem me unfit to even see another day. 

Hmmm... Didn't I just say "How can you be in a bad mood when you are surrounded by so much color? "

Linking up at Quilting by the River and Quilt Story

Hexie WIP

Progress on "My Favorite Things Rainbow". Since I took this picture a few weeks ago I have added more hexies to make it a 9x11 (6 inch hexie) lap size quilt. I don't have them all sewn together yet so this layout may not be the final but I am wondering if I should traditional hand quilt it or if I should embroider the hexie seams. I am tending toward the embroidered seams (all DMC because I want this to be used and washable) but then again...I'm not sure. Does anyone have an opinion?

Favorite Things Hexies

This week I added purple (violet?) favorite things to my pile of hexies.

I also added some green favorite things. Most of what I found in my green stash involved shamrocks. Can you tell I'm of Irish ancestry? I'm not completely taken with my green favorites.

..and here is where I am so far. I have orange and yellow left to do then I will really put it all together. I'm going around the multicolored middle with the colors of the rainbow. I will probably add more multicolor items in the middle and try to keep the lighter colors to the outside so not only will it go dark to light all around but the colors of the rainbow will be circling around - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.  And these are all my favorite things. And, it's definitely going to be a lap quilt of the wash and wear type, but I haven't decided if I will emboider some seams ala crazy quilt style. 

Then I can sit around all winter surrounded by my favorite things and stay warm in my house heated only by wood.

Favorite Things

The following are for my Hexie Rainbow Favorite Things Lap Quilt.

The color blue.  

More blue favorite things

All color favorites.

And more red favorites.

See Lily Quilts Hexalong in sidebar as well as Pigtales and Quilts How-Does-Your-Garden-Grow sew along.

How Does Your Garden Grow? With a Surprise!

Some of my Favorite Things - Red

I've been making 30s tulips for the "How Does Your Garden Grow" sew-along over on Pigtales and Quilts and thought I would never make a hexie like some of the ladies in the sew along.  Never. Never ever. I do love hexies and the sew-along ladies make some gorgeous ones but those little things were not for me. Then I found Lily Quilts and her Hexalong. She is making BIG hexies.She's making BIG hexies and mixing it up a bit with patterns within hexies.  And I can handle that. Because at the same time I had been thinking somewhere in the back of my mind about rainbows and some of my other favorite things and then it struck me...I'll make a BIG Hexie lapquilt for winter with all the colors of the rainbow depicting some of my favorite things. And, when I'm snugly bundled beneath it on some cold winter day, well, then...how does the song go?...then I won't feel so bad.

And, if the DGKs (I really hope that means Darling Grandkids even though mine are sometimes dorky, daring, delightful and darn right nerve - wracking so take your pick on the D word) are over we will even be able to play a little "I spy" with it.

And I wonder why nothing ever gets finished around here...