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

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.  

Testing, Testing...

Last summer I was working on my 1718 Coverlet and discovered there is a lot of hand piecing involved with some very weird shapes. I quickly found out that I need more (since I don't have any at all)   hand piecing experience before I can go any further on it. 

I thought a project where I repetitively piece the same pieces over and over again might give me some experience.   This was my first attempt at a Jen Kingwell pattern and, as you can see, my flower needs a little work.  I'm going to keep it but give another one a try. 

This is the book I'm using and this is how the flowers are supposed to look. 

For this first attempt I just used paper templates. I did not add the 1/4 seam allowance to the template. I traced around it on the back of the fabric in pencil and just eyeballed the 1/4 seam allowance when I cut out the shapes. Then I attempted to line up the pencil lines and stitch together on the lines.  I found my eyeballs don't know what 1/4 seam allowance looks like and that it was too difficult to keep those curved pencil lines matched up.    

So, I'm going to make two sets of cardboard templates. One set will be the template without the seam allowance and the other set will be with the seam allowance so when I draw on the back of the fabric I will have two pencil lines and maybe those curves will match up a little better. 

If that works out then I will have a new project to work on during my lunch break. I normally like to go out for lunch but not during the winter when it is cold and there is snow on the ground. So, a portable project is in order.    

And I've always got my circles to work on.  I blanket stitch around the edges. I usually catch up on them on Sundays. I've been making them faithfully since Nov. 4  I write in the white space something to do with the day.   This is my Black Friday circle.. "No Black Friday deals for me. I hate shopping and I especially hate shopping when there are crowds." If you want to know more about the circles project see the Quilty 365 link on the sidebar. 

I've been screwing around with my new laptop all day (windows 10 to replace old XP) and the graphics card is giving me fits otherwise I'd have a lot of Slow Sunday Stitching completed by now. But I guess I have the rest of the day. 

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

So Far...

1718 Coverlet so far. 

I had to put it sideways to fit it in the picture. 

4.5 inch blocks

My challenges: 

I'm piecing it by hand like the original maker did (mosaic patchwork). 

I'm using only solids.

There's a whole lot of applique blocks coming up. 

Joining the tribe at Kathy's Quilts for some Slow Sunday Stitching later on today. 

1718 Coverlet Update

My version of the 1718 Coverlet so far:

Mosaic patchwork 

Completely hand stitched

Using solid fabrics.

A slowly moving summer project

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts. 

Working the 1718 Coverlet by Hand (Row 1)

I'm making my version of the 1718 Coverlet. 

I'm using mottled solids  (Mirage line from Connecting Threads)

I'm going to sew together the whole darned thing together by hand using the same mosaic patchwork (aka English paper piecing) method that the original maker used. 

I'm using ladder stitch, not whip stitch to connect the pieces. I've tried both stitches on other projects but my ladder stitches look better to me. 

I've completed six blocks out of 9 in the top row excluding larger blocks on the ends. 

You can see the first row at the top of the book cover.  And these are the three blocks I have left for the row.  Wish me luck on that fleur-de-lis ...so far the blocks have been pretty easy. 

This is definitely going to be slow to finish and slow stitching.  I think it will be a nice project to work on this summer. 

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.