Back Home Again!

For a short time!

We are "home again, home again, jiggity jig!"

I hadn't realized how much I missed my home until we came home yesterday.  Driving on the highway for three hours from Albuquerque is always a tiring chore.  But yesterday I drove with enthusiasm because I was going home from a two week absence.  And you know that old saying, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"!  LOL!

But yes, as I was driving up our little road to the cabin, I breathed a sigh of relief ... Yes! Yes! Yes! I am home!

So today, we are doing what needs to be done after a two week absence, cleaning, washing, mowing the lawn. Unfortunately, I will not have time to do any machine sewing, but certainly tonight after chores are done, some hand sewing on my hexies!

Tomorrow would be a good day to get back to machine sewing but alas we have to "go to town" for some grocery shopping and some other errands while we are in "town".  But, again, hand sewing the hexies . . . thank God for the Hexies!!!  Since "town" is 40 miles away, we always try to do all our errands in one trip, it saves a lot on gas!  So usually a trip to "town" is always more or less a whole day affair.

So hopefully Tuesday will be my day to sew on the machine and post more pictures.

Meantime, keep on quilting!

Aveli

Small Tornado Hits My Hexies!

So I am over at my daughter's house. We came to have a family barbecue. We were not able to get together for " Fourth of July" because of my hip so we are getting together now.

Anyway, I brought my plastic bin full of quilting supplies to work on my hexies while we drive here and while I have down time at my daughter's house.

I usually only work on them in the early morning hours and in the late evening before retiring. Yesterday I brought the bin out and was working on the hexies while the granddaughter was still asleep. I didn't pay attention when she came down and she saw the bin.  Of course her two year old eyes lit up with the possibility of a new toy! She was very polite and asked if she could touch the hexies. I guess she thought they were puzzle pieces. She was trying to lay them out and connecting them like puzzle pieces.

She loved all the pieces, there were so many! Then I asked her what color the pieces were and she got every one correct except the grey!

We had a great time "sewing"!

I told her mommy that I hoped this was an indication of her interest in quilting! LOL!!

The first picture is what my bin looks like normally and the second after the "little tornado" did her "sewing"!

Flea Market at VFW Hall

This Saturday there will be a flea market at the VFW hall in the town of Mora, New Mexico, USA, starting at 8 am.

I am selling my quilting goods, freezer paper hexagons, pre cut fabric hexagons, 2 1/2 inch fabric strips, fat quarters, fat eights, fabric scraps, fabric yardage, thread, batting and various other crafting stuff.

I am also selling a crib and an Eddie Bauer high chair - all wood, that we bought to use when our granddaughters came to visit. They are now out of that stage so we don't need them anymore.  They are practically brand new. They have been in storage longer than they were used.

And of course since it is a flea market, we will be selling any other "stuff" that we can dig out of storage.

So if you have nothing to do and are in the area, drop by and say hello! It's free to get in!

Working the hexies!

Some advice.  . . When you get to be a senior, don't try to do too many physical stunts or silliness.  . . You''ll throw your hip out!!

Well I did just that trying to imitate a model on t.v.  you know that exaggerated hip swinging walk they do?

Right in the middle of my second step a very loud and audible to everyone pop and then PAIN!!

Needless to say I have not been able to walk properly for three days!

So of course I had to turn to my hand sewing project to keep from going crazy!!

I worked on my" insanity" hexagon quilt. This is as far as I have gotten.

 

Working Hexies Just For Fun

Here is a picture of my latest folly! Half Inch Hexies!!

I layed out the project on top, but you can barely see it here.

Please notice that the hexies are as big as the thimble, bobbins or my fingertip. I thought it would be fun to make a small project . . .just for fun so I can say I did it!  So I decided to make a dresser scarf.  That pink, grey and red strip on the top of the picture is the project.

They actually don't take long to form around the foundation papers. What takes a long time is making enough of them to cover anything! Since I am using freezer paper for the hexies, I don't have to deal with pins or glue, just iron then on to the fabric.

I will keep you posted on this project.

Next time I use this size, I will make coasters . . . LOL!

Can't even imagine doing a king size quilt!!!

Just Scrappin Around!

I am working on my scrappy string basket weave quilt.  As "feeder" blocks or strips, I use my crumbs from the strings sewn onto strips cut from used printer paper. I have a plan for these. I am also making square in a square that finish at 2" for the cornerstones of my crumb strips. These are not my original ideas. I am borrowing from Bonnie Hunter's last quilt cam broadcast.

Here are my cute little square in a square 2 " blocks . . .

 

 and all my crumb triangles. . . Can you see some of the fabrics repeated in each patch?

and my crumb strips. . .

Notice the printed paper? That is actually a health manual that I get every year from my insurance company.  It is about 2 inches thick. You know me, I hate to throw paper away! I cut it down to use for my crumb strips.  I even use letters that come in the mail. They are usually 8 1/2 x 11 paper.  After I finish the project and am stripping the paper away, I save them to use as "kindling" for my wood burning heat stove.

Several people have asked me -- where do I get so many scraps (crumbs) from?  When I cut fabric for my customers I end up with a lot of bags full of scraps!

Here is a picture of the green scraps left from cutting fabric orders.I have several bags of these scraps sorted by color.

This is what the scraps looked like after cutting a hexagon order . . .

 

Can you see the possibilities? There are triangles on the bottom and top; diamonds in the middle and if I cut carefully, I can get a couple of strips from the fold.

Here I am just starting to cut the scraps apart. I usually do this while "listening" to tv with my husband.

One Triangle done!

Here is what I have after I am finished cutting the scrap "sheet" that was left after cutting the hexagons for a customer. Quite a bit of fabric. Isn't it? Combine these with other colors and I get a new quilt, table runner, placemat, pot holder, sewing machine cover, etc. The possibilities are endless!

Of course you have to like working with small pieces, which I do! I guess my grandmother's frugal gene is firmly planted in me.  She made her small pieced quilts out of necessity from old clothing, as did many of our grandmothers and foremothers.  But as a quilter, I couldn't see all this fabric go to waste. My string basket weave quilt, crumb strips and square in a square are all being made from these "scraps"!

If you look at a previous posting about my granddaughter's baby doll quilt, that is made from these scraps too!

Enjoy your quilting . . . scrappy or otherwise!

Aveli

Finally Pink Baby Quilt is Done!

 I haven't been posting the past few days because I have been diligently frantically working on getting this pink baby quilt finished!

Well, Here it is!  I just finished the binding and took some pictures to post.  I didn't put any quilting on the border.  But now that I look at these pictures, I see that the border is still crooked!!!  I guess that I will have to add some kind of quilting in the border to "hide" the crooked wrinkles that I see in the left lower corner and the upper right corner.  I have no idea how that happened! Maybe because I was in a rush to finish before my daughter comes next week.

 

 This is a close up of the hand quilting that I did. It doesn't look too bad! Does it?

 

 There is not much else I can do to improve it, now that it is finished.  I will add a little quilting in the border during this week.  It shouldn't take too long.  Plus, I have to wash it and wrap it in a box.

Now since that is finished, I can get back to my string quilt!  Oh, wait, I have to wait until my daughter leaves from her stay here with us!  

I can't possibly be sewing on the sewing machine because it is in the cabin where they will be staying.  I can't move it because all my sewing supplies are in there too!  Oh well, I guess it's time to get back to my hexagon "insanity" quilt while she is here!

I love my hexagon project! It is still a long ways away from being put together, but I love the hand work.  I am still forming the individual hexies and then forming the individual flowers for the center.

I will post pictures of my progress later this week.

Meanwhile . . .

Keep on Quilting!

Aveli

 

Hexagon Adventure, Chapter 2

Well as mentioned before I had cut my plastic hexagon template from a 1 gallon plastic milk jug.  Great! Now I am ready to cut the hexagons and start sewing. . .wrong!

What on earth will I use to mark the hexagons?? In my sewing experience I have used chalk, chalk markers and #2 pencil.  But this is quilting! There are so many types of markers out there. I guess the only way to find out which is best is to try them out.

I had heard that you can print on the back of the fabric and then cut shapes out for your quilting. I did that but when I test washed the fabric the ink bled into the rest of the fabric.  I guess that's out. On to markers, I tried regular markers from the dollar store.  First, the tip was too big and chunky and second, they went through the material to the front of the fabric. Then I tried fabric markers, same as the dollar store variety. Then I bought this really expensive pen made for marking on fabric. I got the white one.  It was really neat and was a fine tip and showed up really well and didn't go through the fabric and didn't bleed when washed. So, what was the problem? For some reason, when I was writing on the fabric, the ink didn't show up for a good 30 seconds later. So, for each line I drew I had to wait 30 seconds to make sure the line wasn't crooked or that it had drawn with enough ink. With hexagons having 6 sides, that came out to 3 minutes to draw each hexie!! I had to draw hundreds of these . . .that was not going to work out. I thought I was doing something wrong so I did some research and found out that other quilters were having the same problem as I was with the delay in showing up.

So now I went to pencils.  Regular colored pencils were no good because they need a heavy pressure in order to draw on fabric and that pressure would stretch the fabric. The last resort was my trusty #2 pencil.  Very thin line when sharp, does not need a lot of pressure, washes out and is pretty cheap!  Later I tried a #1 pencil.  Do you know how difficult it is to get a #1 pencil in the mountains?  Practically impossible! I ordered a box of #1 pencils online and used it very successfully.  It is a very soft lead so very little pressure is needed for marking and like #2, washes out completely. Then I discovered that I could get a #1 lead in a mechanical pencil --- I was in heaven.

So here I am merrily drawing and cutting and forming my little hexies.  YAY! I went from wanting a dresser scarf to wanting a bed cover.  So I started looking for a workable pattern where I could use the rows that I had already sewn.  Then I discovered the "Insanity Quilt" made in 1/2" hexies!!!

Oh my word was it beautiful! I was in love! I immediately decided that the hexies I was making were too large . . .LOL! I decided to use my one inch freezer paper foundations that I sell on my website and start all over! OH NO, Really???

Stay tuned for Chapter 3 in my ongoing Hexagon Adventure . . . .

Everyone, keep on quilting!
Aveli

Working the string blocks, baby quilt and more!

Every morning as soon as I get up, I work on my string quilt blocks.  I go straight to the coffee pot, make hot water for my tea and while that is brewing, I sew my 4 1/2 inch string blocks. I have a large supply of strips of various size widths, colors and patterns in a drawer next to my sewing machine. I pull out the strips, sew it onto a foundation paper made from my old phone book and keep repeating until I have 10 blocks sewn. I end the chain piecing with a foundation paper sized 2 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches.  It is from these little "feeder" blocks that I made my granddaughter's "baby doll" quilt.

I know that sounds very organized, but trust me its not!  Sometimes I run out of fabric strips and have to run to my scrap box and clean cut the scraps into various sized strips to put in my drawer next to the sewing machine. I have several plastic boxes full of these scraps. I am trying to justify keeping them or "hoarding" them, as my husband calls it. 

These are scraps left from years of cutting butterflies, cats, hexagons, triangles for my customers' orders.  There are all sizes and weird shaped pieces left.  But, if I cut just so, I can get several strips of different widths and many, many triangles of different sizes! I can't even begin to think of throwing all that fabric away! If that makes me a hoarder, so be it!

I have already made enough blocks to put together a quilt top from these scraps that you can see here Click Here   But, it was not big enough to drape over the side of my double bed.  So that's why I am sewing more blocks.  Plus, after I finish this one, I am making 2 more for my other kids. I think then maybe, I will have used all the scraps in the plastic boxes, LOL!!!

In the meantime, remember the "baby doll" quilt?  Well I finally decided, I am going to quilt it on the machine.  Even though I am not very experienced in machine quilting, I think I will manage with this one because it is so small. I will post a picture when I am done, maybe on Monday???

My hexagon quilt progress will be posted tomorrow!

Have a great time quilting!

Aveli

Hexagons

I have always wanted to do a quilt project by "hand".  I know, I know, CRAZY!  Why would I want to do a project by hand when I have 2 perfectly good sewing machines!

Well, to start off, there are a lot of hand sewers out there. I've always wanted to see what kind of woman or "gumption" I would have to have to do this type of thing.  Trust me, you really have to LOVE hand work to do this.

I have always felt drawn to hand work. Since I was little, my mother taught me to embroider and crochet.  Later I would pick up counted cross stitch,  knitting and quilting.  By the way, the cousin who taught me to knit was left handed, so I knit left handed.  It throws a lot of knitters off when they see me.  As one lady commented a long time ago when I was younger -- "What ARE you doing??"

I love to hand quilt my quilts.  But, in my quilting history I had not made an entire quilt by hand instead of the sewing machine. I do a lot of applique, but I usually do piecing. I also wanted a project to do on the road while we travel back and forth from this great state to another.  Applique was out of the question for me because of the finesse needed and my failing "old" eyes.  So, I decided on hexagons!

At first, I decided to start with just a long skinny scarf for my dresser.  But, when I saw how nice it was starting to look, I upped the size to a crib size and then to a double bed size.

Once I decided to do this project, I was overwhelmed by the many choices of methods to do this labor intensive project!

One of the first things I had to decide which template do I use for cutting the hexagons.

I know that I sell pre-cut or die cut hexagon fabrics either alone http://avelisquilts-ivil.tripod.com/id9.html or in kits http://avelisquilts-ivil.tripod.com/pieced_quilt_kits.html (scroll down for hexagons).  I also sell precut Hexagons in freezer paper either precut  or printed on freezer sheets http://avelisquilts-ivil.tripod.com/id165.html.

The problem was that I was like Goldilocks. . . the 2" was too small and the 4" was too big.  I needed something "just right". What I wanted was about 1/4 inch bigger all around the 2" size so that when I sewed them, they would end up being 2".   So, either of the sizes I sell were not "just right"!

Also, remember I couldn't use the freezer paper method, as a template for cutting, because I was going to be in the car and an iron was unavailable. So I went ahead and manually drew the 2" size by tracing around one of my freezer paper die cut pieces on a regular piece of paper.  I then used the freezer paper piece to draw a copy on a piece of milk jug plastic with a permanent marker.  I heartily recommend using this plastic for templates.  It saves throwing the plastic into the landfill, its economical and it endures. Yes, you still have some plastic left over that can't be used.  But, it's a lot less than what you started with.  Just make sure you have a heavy pair of scissors when cutting it because of the thickness.

Another thing I like about milk jug plastic is that the inside of the milk jug is rough textured, not smooth like the outside.  The rough side when placed against the fabric helps to grip the fabric.

I now had a 2" drawing on regular paper and a 2" drawing on a large pieces of milk jug plastic.
Next, I used my ruler and drew an additional 1/4" line all the way around the paper 2" drawing. I now had the size that I desired. I cut this out on the last line that I drew, not the inside line. I used this piece of paper as a template to draw another hexagon on the milk jug plastic.  I now had two hexagons drawn on the milk jug plastic.  one was 2" and one was 2 1/2 inches.  I cut both of them out, punched a hole in the middle of both.  I was ready to start drawing on fabric!!!

WAIT! No I wasn't!  What was I going to use to mark on the fabric??  With all the choices of marking tools now days. . . . Well that's another day's blog entry!

Stay tuned for further adventures in sewing Hexagons and follow my progress!  Meanwhile, back to quilting!!!

Hexagon Box - Repost

I posted this on my old blog in January for New Year's Greeting, but I thought it was worth reposting on this new blog.

Happy New Year to all! Hope all of you will have a great year and quilt all year long!

I had previously made a box for my one inch hexies because I was unable to find or wish to spend money on several boxes to hold them while I was making individual hexies.

Now I have adjusted the pattern and have made a mock up of a box for half inch hexies. Here is a picture of the mock up next to the one inch box.

Notice that the one inch box measures approximately 5 inches while the half inch box measures only two inches.

Here is the inside of the box. You can see how snugly the hexies fit inside. There is no chance for them to shift sideways to get wrinkled.

You can request either the half inch or the one inch pattern by contacting me through the "contact" link on the right.

Of course you can always use the plastic craft boxes available at the local craft store. But this is so much cheaper! All you need is the pattern and a cereal box to glue it to and cut and glue and you have a box!

Hope you enjoy this little pattern and the bigger one too!

Almost Home!

We had a stopover in Albuquerque to visit my youngest daughter and today we are leaving for Guadalupita on the train!

When Using Hexagon Freezer Paper

This picture shows how I place the hexagon freezer paper shapes and iron them onto the back of the fabric before cutting them apart.

There is about half an inch between each freezer paper piece.  If you place them in this honeycomb configuration, when you cut them apart, you will get a one fourth inch seam allowance all around the hexagon and not waste any fabric.