Monday, August 27, 2018

Staying in a Groove?

August has been such a "come and go" month for me that it's been a challenge to stay in my typical productive stitching groove.  Thank goodness for the portability and short seams of working with hexies and having an engaging knitting project going!!

I've been continuing to strive for making a weekly hexie flower as part of Naomi Clarke's (@naomialicec) #fussycuttingsewalong on Instagram.  This month's theme has been "travel" and it's been a tough one for me since I'm working with traditional reproduction prints for this project.
Upper left is a favorite travel destination -- formal gardens of any sort represented by the centered floral motifs.
Upper right is a "fail" as we were supposed to be plucking out a section of a travel motif and reassembling it in such a way to create a design -- after over a week of going through that (large) box of fabric, I caved and settled for "travel" -- it's the hare riding on the tortoise's back!
The lower one is cut from a map of Paris that I picked up several years ago and the center motif is Notre Dame -- my gosh, it's upside down in this picture?!?  It's another of those hexie flowers that recreates the fabric as printed.  When I visited Paris in 1968,  we stayed near Notre Dame so perhaps the street is on this map?

There is a master plan for all these motifs which is keeping me motivated!!
I am adding 1" diamonds to make each into 3" hexagons and after much searching (first in my stash and then via shopping), I found this soft green toile style print for the alternating setting triangles.

Back in July, I shared a glimpse of a large motif that will be the center of this plan!
I chose one of my favorite hexie motifs for the center and have been building up the large star gradually.  
Since I'm machine-piecing this quilt top using the "Set-In Piecing Simplified" technique which I teach, I made the six point sections as "leaders and enders" while working on other projects or just when I need to unwind with some repetitive stitching.
The sections are all labeled and I'm almost done attaching them to the center.  
Once that is done, I'll be able to figure out (for sure) how much background to add so that the finished star fits into my setting plan.  I've worked it out on paper, but am doubting my theory a bit . . . . . 
She sets a weekly theme and everyone makes one hexie a day to reflect that theme.
This set is from the "about you" week.
I bird (a lot), my favorite color is yellow, and I use more green in my piecing than any other color.
The week two theme was "summer" -- growing flowers and berries, enjoying insects, and feeding the hummingbirds!
The week three theme was "fantasy" and it stumped me at first.  Most are using unicorns and fairies and gnomes but since I'm stash-focused in my projects, I chose frogs in jaunty hats and cats that wear monocles and water the garden.
When the sew-along wraps up in early December, I should have enough 1 1/4" hexies to make another Nundle Dilly-bag, one of Brigitte Giblin's patterns that I've made before.
This week's theme is "cute critters" -- I hope I have a few more in my stash!

My  #crownwoolsmkal wrap is almost finished!!  I'm using up sock yarn leftovers -- think there are 9 different skeins.  It's almost 6 feet long at this point and I've enjoyed exploring new-to-me stitch combinations.  As I said last week when I posted this picture to my Instagram feed, I might look like I'm wrapped up in a lot of socks, but it's pretty and unique!
And the goal of reducing that stash has been reached -- now the remaining sock yarn fits in the (smallish) box with the lid closed!!
The neighbor children went back to school last week and I'm striving to hold onto the last days of summer.  There's a fresh basket of peaches on the kitchen shelf which hopefully will yield another pie this week.  Since I won't have the help of #tidysister on the left (she made the crust) and #funsister on the right (she helped peel), it will only be one pie and perhaps not home made crust?!?
Time to stitch!!
Mary









1 comment:

  1. You're right about hexies helping to fit in some stitching time when life is going gang busters. I like your hexies. Pie is on my list for this week.

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