Playing with Hexagons

I completed my out-of-town assignment for work today!  In celebration I am sitting in front of my design board playing with my Tula Pink hexagons.

Floral hexagon arrangement

I love how fabric the seems to say "I'm ready for my close-up."

Organized by color...

Placement of my hand to give scale to the 99 hexagons... 

I knew in my head that they wouldn't go far, but it's nice to spread them out to get the true sense of scale.  I feel more "justified" (i.e. not as guilty) to buy more of Tula Pink's Prince Charming.   (You can find it on sale here).

I think I'm leaning toward the color gradient.  What do you think?  Or should I try more of a zig zag pattern?  Hmmm....

Sea Glass: Finished Quilt Top

Here are a few pictures of Sea Glass before it took a nice trip to the quilt shop.

My thanks go to my husband, for picking the color of this quilt's border.  Moda's Bella in Indigo was the perfect solution.  The jury is still out on the color of the binding, but I have some time to figure it out.

Sea Glass measures roughly 40" x 56."  Loving these colors!

Hexagons - A Traveling Project

This week brings another long commute to an out of town project for work.  Thankfully, I have my hexagon kit to bring with me and work on at lunch.

For Christmas, I bought myself (yes, I bought myself a gift for Christmas) a hexagon kit from Tula Pink, using her Prince Charming line.  The kit came with pre-cut squares and 100 paper hexagon pieces.

Not sure what I will do with them yet, perhaps a mini quilt?

And a sneak peak at progress on the Sea Glass quilt.  Hopefully I can squeeze in some much needed sewing machine bonding this week.

Oh, and for extra fun, here is my favorite hexagon.  I was able to fussy "position" the hexagon paper piece to highlight the bicycle!

Chevron Skirt - Complete

This week required more time commuting as a project was out of town.  This commute ate all of my sewing and quilting time, not to mention my energy.  I was in need of a quick and easy project and behold, the skirt!

I used Riley Blake's chevron print fabric in grey and the tutorial from The Big Oak Tree found here.

I highly recommend this tutorial!  For a person whose sewing skills can be limited to straight-line quilting, I was hesitant to try a skirt.  This tutorial featured a lot of straight lines.  The only difficult part, was the zipper, but I muscled my way through.

I am very happy with the results!

Looking forward to more time for quilting this week!  Hope you are, too.

Awesome Hour Glass Centers - A Tip

After making 88 plus hour glass blocks, I thought I would share a tip that really helped me keep my corners in line.

If you're interested in making some hour glass blocks I would highly recommend the tutorial from Cluck Cluck Sew seen here. 

First you will need to create the "two-halves" of your double hour glass.  Do not iron yet!

Take the first half and pick a side that you will start to press first.  You will not be using open seams and so you will want to start each side from the same fabric.  Below I decided to start on the side with the Kona Oyster.

Press carefully, but not too hard that you stretch your fabric.  Repeat this step with the second half of the block.  Remember to start pressing from the same colored fabric as the other half.

Now you have your two halves of your block.

Because you pressed both halves in the same direction, your seam is now on the same side.  When you go to match your seam / corner, you now have the creases of the fold to help you.

The creases can be pushed together to help you align the center.  Pin and sew the two halves together.

Press the seam either to the side or open, depending on your preference.

Trim the excess and admire your awesome block centers!

Repeat as necessary for your project!

If you have questions or suggestions for improvement, please let me know!

Sea Glass: 88 Blocks Later

Over the past week I've cut, sewn, pressed, sewn, re-pressed, and trimmed over 88 hour glass blocks.  

I initially started with an equal number of all fabrics, but as I started to place the blocks "randomly," I noticed that the navy colors were overpowering the rest.  The results above are promising, although right now I'm noticing a few blocks I need to turn... I was up too late last night playing with the arrangement. 

Fabrics from left to right: Navy floral from stash, Metro Living Circles in Navy, Moda Bella solid in Indigo, Living Lattice in Dusty Blue, Moda Bella in Carribean, Dobby Dot in Aqua, and Waves in Seafoam.