Mini-Dresden and Temperature Quilt Update

 Thanks to previous blog records, I can say with certainty that I've been working on this project now for two years.  Almost exactly two years.  Started it in April 2018.

I decided to count the finished plates.  There are 185 plates in total.  I hadn't counted them before.  I'm not sure I should have counted them.....

Only 30 are appliqued.  OK, actually 29.25.

The truth is that I don't do a lot of sit and stitch lately, so I'm trying to be more deliberate about working on them when I am sitting in front of TV.

Last week when I was trying to organize projects and do some cleaning up, I went ahead and cut (all?) the background squares.  Applique on!

Hopefully our trip to Florida will happen - lots of car stitching time.
Hopefully.......

Some helpers getting a photo of the Temperature Quilt.  It was too windy, otherwise.  Here I am showing through April 13.  I've switched to a green background for Spring.  I believe it is Kona "Pear"  At the top you can see one day with yellow/orange.  That was our outlier of 79 degrees!

Blue and White Hexies Quilt Finish

I finished this fun little quilt just a couple weeks after Christmas.  It was a gift and I couldn't share until it had been gifted. 

The pattern was based off my friend's bathroom floor.  She has a lovely older home with hexie tiles in the downstairs bathroom. 

I've actually had the main part done, with the papers pulled for some time.  Last November I got it basted and started appliqueing down the center.

Quilting didn't happen until January, but I couldn't be happier with how it turned out!

 My friend loves it as well!

 Those are 1/2" hexies if you were wondering. 
The quilt measures about  14" x 12"

I used a bright white and thin poly batting for the insides.

The blue butterfly backing fabric came from deep stash. 

As soon as my friend finished ooohing and aaahhing over it, she promptly gave it back and told me to enter it in an upcoming local show, whose theme is blue and white!

Mini Dresden Progress Update

Hello!

I have spent the late spring, all summer and early fall working diligently on my Mini Dresden English Paper Piecing Project.  If you follow me on Instagram, you'll know that I keep updated with the plates as they are finished, but today I thought I'd talk a bit about the process.

I talked about the beginning some in this post - and will probably repeat some of that info here, too.

I start by using my Silhouette machine to cut out cardstock papers of the petals/wedges.

It takes 12 papers to make a plate, I've got 100 plates done, so I've used at least 1,200 papers. That doesn't include the basted wedges that haven't been sewn together yet - so probably towards 2,000 papers at this point.  So glad I can make them at home.

In my first post I showed you the box of "squares" I was working with.  Here's a photo of what's left:

That stack in the upper left is all the same fabric.  It will not all get turned into wedges.  In fact, it may end up in the fire....

So, I just lay out my wedge.

Trim off a bit of excess fabric.

Use one of my tiny paper clips to hold the fabric to the paper. 

Here is a bunch, lined up and ready to baste.  I am not actually basting to the papers, but am basting in such a way that the thread will not have to be removed.  

 I bring them pretty much everywhere.  You just never know when you are going to have waiting time. 

This picture was a couple of weeks ago.  I just wanted to see them all at once.  I am totally embracing "more is more" 

 When I have a set of colors basted, I organize them by fabric and number.  Above is anything less than six.

 These are the sets of 6 that are not yet sewn.

 My last two assembled plates.  The above bothers me a bit, being half and half, but I will probably leave it. These are numbers 99 and 100.

 I plan on appliqueing onto a scrappy neutral background. The biggest decision right now?  The fabric choice for center circles.  Navy? Cream? Black? Brown?  Change it up for each one?  Definitely a long way to go before I have a finish.

 My finished stacks.

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.

Let's Talk Hexies

A real life friend was chastising me for not blogging lately.  I guess its been nearly 4 weeks.  Yikes.
So let's talk hexies today.  I finished sewing all the hexagons into groups of eight.  And then I did a total count.

 Those cards separate groups of 20.

 Total?  1,672.  What happened to the other 431?

 Well, 408 are in the above quilt.  If you've been around for a while, you may remember that I had cut out a large chunk of papers that were the wrong size.  Off by about 1/8" of an inch.  When English Paper Piecing, that might as well be a mile.  So I pieced all those larger hexies into the above quilt.  It is on the "quilt sooner than later" list. :)  In a way its good, though, because it will give me a chance to try a faced binding to preserve the hexie edges. 

 There are also a few random ones floating around of both sizes. 

The moral of today's story?  I'm back to basting hexies.  I will pull the scrap box in a while.  I have some other hand projects that I want to work on first.  This is, after all, The Ten Year Project.  I've got Five years left!