The 10 year Hexie Project - Major Update

The first mention of the hexies I could find on the blog was *here* in May 2012

I have been carting these babies all over the place.  To many states, in trains, planes and automobiles.  Swim lessons, violin lessons, piano lessons, cello lessons, ballet class and many sporting events.

They are now all together.  Still basted to papers.  Ready for some kind of a border.  Perhaps a thin strip of yellow and a large of blue?

I even know how I'll quilt it.  

More to come.

The New 10 Year Project

What?!? The NEW 10 year project?  What happened to the old one? Is what I'm sure you are asking.

Well, thanks to some prodding from my son the other evening, the hexies are entirely pieced.  Is the project done?  No.  I need to applique the hexies on to a border (I'm leaning toward yellow)  and then quilt the thing, but I've still got 1 year and 10 months to go before my 10 years is up.

I have, however, started a new project, because I needed something small to carry around with me. 

A while back my SIL picked up these vintage squares for me at a rummage sale.  I've been debating what to do with them.  They are roughly 2" square.  When I say roughly, that's because they were marked with pen and then cut.

They are therefore, not consistent enough to sew by hand. 

 After some looking around on the Paper Pieces website I decided on Dresden Plate wedges, or petals, or kites- what ever you want to call them.    Then I noticed the cost - and I'm pretty cheap thrifty- so I decided to see if I could make my own templates.

After some long time messing around, I finally got them figured out and just the right size for my patches.

I also ended up purchasing some small paper clips.  These are just 5/8".  When I basted my hexies, I had basted them right to the paper.  These templates are card stock so I didn't want to sew through that, and I am not a fan of glue basting.  It doesn't seem to want to come out cleanly for me.  Anyway, I needed a way to hold the fabric still when I started the stitches.

So, I've been making fan blades/petals/kites/whatevers.

This was the first one I made, and I realized a couple of things: Dresden Plate quilts are inherently scrappy - so you can actually see the individual pieces - and not to finish/baste the bottom of the blade - its not necessary and the extra fabric will be needed for appliqueing the center on.

I've been keeping colors together with binder clips.

A rainbow, of sorts.

A two color.

 I've been using this tin to hold the templates and binder clips.  My new watch came in it and its perfect!

 So is my new watch.  My last Baby G lasted almost 10 years.  I'm the kind of person that needs a watch - I don't rely on my phone for the time. 

Hexie Update 4.8.16

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I've been steadily working on basting and piecing hexagons, epp style.  I call it my 10 Year Project.  Today I am going to do a complete update on how things are going.

 This box contains the 1,672 hexies that I pieced into Eights by last April.  Then I found out I needed to make more, because about 400 of the hexies I had finished were the wrong size.  I pieced them into this small quilt *here*.

 Monday, I finished piecing the hexies into fours.

 This is sort of a magic moment, when you piece Fours into Eights, it takes exactly the same time as Twos into Fours. 

 But you have less pieces, so are done twice as fast!
I did a quick count and have 121 Fours ready to piece.  I will probably only do the 100 - then do Sixteens, then check my layout.

 Once these are all into Eights, I will piece into Sixteens, along the sawtooth edge this time.  Also, when the Eights are done, all will be caught up.

 I've kept out a small handful of Ones, Twos, in case I need to add them somewhere for the layout. 

In other news, the bees come tomorrow.  Today it is snowing.  Not cool.