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.  

This and That - Handwork

I work on a variety of small handwork projects when it's too hot to hand quilt a large quilt. 

 All Creatures Great and Small

EPP Hexies - New Additions

I now have 88 hexies. 

 Staying Neutral

Crazy Quilt

2 new six inch blocks

Butterfly chain, lots of bullion rosebuds and flyleaf leaves

I also crocheted a snowflake and stitched it to a block with some couched fluffy yarn scraps that remind me of blowing snow. 

Chicken Scratch Sashing

And I've been slowly doing some chicken scratch embroidery. Each strip will be a sashing for a quilt. I only need 84 strips of chicken scratch.  Only 84! Who's idea was this? 

Meanwhile I've been eating, drying and pickling peppers...

 ...contemplating making sauerkraut since most of last year's supply is gone...

 ...eating and pickling cucumbers. Notice my old wire hanger trellis? It has lasted many years. 

 And I spend some time enjoying nature's flower arrangements.  The blue flowers are actually wildflowers  - tall bellflowers - that planted themselves there around a clump of Stargazer Lilies. 

But I don't think I'll stop and smell these roses. Darned Japanese Beetles!!!!! 

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

All Creatures Great and Small

This time of year I spend a lot of time in the garden so when it comes to hand work I work on smaller projects instead of hand quilting on a big quilt.  One of the projects I worked on this week was my All Creatures Great and Small hexies.  I completed eight of them and prepped many more. 

They will go into the pile with some of the other critters...

...now totaling 83.  Not sure how many I want or the size of the quilt I'll make. I guess I'll just make them until I've made one from all the different creature fabrics I have in the stash. 

I have my pencil case loaded with more pieces - scraps from the 30s reproduction box.  These will be hexies with the star configuration.    Just an FYI - to baste fabric to my scratch paper templates I use old spools of thread from the thrift store. I'm not sure why someone would have all those itty bitty spools but they work for me. I then use the thread from the ends of machine quilting thread and ladder stitch for piecing.  My cross stitch biscornu pincushion I made years ago has seen better days but it fits perfectly into my pencil box.  I guess my little needlework scissors must be under the pieces.  So now I have hexies to go. 

Slow Sunday Stitching

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

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. 

Kaleidoscope of Butterflies

Butterflies on hexies. 

Butterflies on my deck 

Tiger Swallowtail, Hackberry Emperor and a teeny tiny White Sulphur butterfly that blended in with the Bird's Eye (Gilia) flower while nectaring. 

An InLinkz Link-up

A Rainbow of Favorite Things - Finished !!!

43x60

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. 

Almost Finished Except For...

 ...Labels.  I have to stitch on some labels to finish up 4 quilts - 3 for Quilts of Valor and one for a wedding gift for my niece and husband-to-be.   I hate adding labels. Don't exactly know why I procrastinate for so long.  I want to ship off the quilts and the wedding is coming up so this is on my to-do list for tonight. 

And my Rainbow of Favorite Things Hexie Quilt is almost finished except for a few red and orange patches. I might get that finished up tonight also. This quilt has been made completely by hand.  I couldn't decide how to finish off the edges. I ended up turning under 1/4 inch on top and backing and stitching the two together with ladder stitch. I think that's what it's called. Might be called blind stitch. At any rate...I'm almost finished~!! 

To see what other Slow Sunday Stitching is going on in blog land visit Kathy's Quilts. 

This is the last day of my staycation so it's hi ho! hi ho! It's off to work I go tomorrow.  I did get a lot of weeding done and a lot of flimsies made so watch for some finished quilts here soon! 

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.