{handstitched week 7} I'm behind

It is official, I have fallen behind. Luckily! So has everyone else. Haha. Being only a week behind, I would like to think I am doing pretty well. I have all of the patchwork complete for my modern medallion quilt, two storm at sea blocks, almost my entire star blossom, and well...haven't made much more progress on the pillow, but it can wait.

Choosing the colors for my patchwork was really hard. It definitely tested my ability to pull fabrics and colors together that were not already part of a line. I went waaaay too bright with my first round of patchwork. After being incredibly disheartened by how bad it looked, I regrouped and went with softer colors. They still provide enough pop, without being overwhelming.

Side note, most of the time pictures tend to mute the true colors of a quilt, hence the reason for photo editing. This is the one time in my life where pictures make a quilt look brighter. The whole thing is actually much more muted in person. Weird.

Anyway, after conquering the patchwork, I was again puzzled by the storm at sea blocks. The problem I discovered was that I had too many options, too many prints I wanted to include, and too many colors to work with. I really should have tried to do the whole quilt from a specific line of fabric. Once I began to simplify the block and the color choices, I was re-energized. This is block number one. All four will be different, so hopefully in the next few days I will have the rest finished for show and tell.

I have also learned during this process, that I am not comfortable with warm colors. I love buying fabric in shades of pinks/reds/oranges, I get freaked out when I use them in quilts. It never looks as perfect, placid, or comforting to me as it would if it were made out of cool colors. I was really trying to break that feeling with this quilt, but it is definitely haunting me a little. 

In my spare time (cause that exists) I have been paper piecing the star blossom that Rachel created. Hers was stretched wall art, but I plan to make 4 (four!?!...eventually) and put them in frames in my living room. Here is the progress on blossom number one. 

And thats all for now. Back to the grind!

Snow Day!

Well really more like flurry day, but it is the first snow-like weather that Richmond has seen all year! Fortunately for me, I did all of my errands yesterday so I can spend the day inside sewing. I decided nothing would be more perfect for a day like this than some hexies! I have had a pile waiting for me to begin piecing for some time. 

I decided to go with 5 inch hexies because frankly I don't have the patience to make an entire quilt out of itty bitty hexagons. Haha. I printed them from an online hexagon generator (hexies!) onto card stock so they would be pretty substantial while I was attempting my hand sewing.  

My method is rather improvisational because I sort of learned as I went rather than follow a pattern or tutorial. The steps are pretty much the same as any other method though. I just cut out my paper hexagon, lay it on my fabric, and use it as a template while I cut around it with my rotary cutter. I don't use any particular seam allowance or anything, I just sort of eyeball it.

Then, I just sort of tack the fabric to the paper hexagon with a needle and thread, folding one corner over at a time, and moving around the hexagon. I usually tack each corner on the first pass and then the middle of each flat side on the second pass. It gives me the confidence that I need that the fabric is tight around the paper.

Then it is on to hand stitching. I am choosing to do these by hand as a challenge to myself because I rarely take on a hand sewn project. I think, however, I have figured out a pretty efficient way to do them by machine. If I master it, I will post a tutorial.

I don't have very many pieced so far, but I am not planning for this to be a fast project. I will make a couple new hexies now and then as I get new fabric, and one day (hopefully) it will be a showcase of the fabric that has passed through my sewing room. I like the idea of a big scrappy hexie quilt. Now I am going to go enjoy the fact that I am not outside and start learning to piece my hexagons!